Fitz Hugh Ludlow burst on the literary scene in 1857 with the unlikely best seller
The Hasheesh Eater
. Written when he was just 20 years old, the book swept him into a career as a prolific novelist, short story author, arts critic, travel writer, journalist and editor. His friends and colleagues ranged from Walt Whitman to Brigham Young to Mark Twain. The material published in Ludlow’s
Collected Works
displays a depth of observation, a breadth of erudition and an appetite for extreme experience applied to the emerging modern American nation. The first (and only) biography of Ludlow,
Pioneer of Inner Space,
was first published in 1998 by Autonomedia Press, as part of a series of critical reconsiderations of drug policy in America. It is no accident that this compilation of Ludlow’s
coincides with yet another turn in social attitudes with legalization of marijuana in multiple states. Further, academic attitudes have changed, and Ludlow is the focus of many recent reviews of his drug writings, his Bohemian lifestyle and professional life in 19
th
century New York City. Publication of this new edition of
Pioneer of Inner Space--
which has been updated, re-illustrated and contains Ludlow's extant lettters and poetry--fittingly concludes his
, and provides valuable personal context and insight for Ludlow’s varied writings, finally available in their entirety to the research community and the general public.