Stylish reissue of a classic novel first published in the 1970s: Hunter S Thompson's ether-fuelled, savage journey to the heart of the American Dream. 'We were somewhere around Barstow on the edge of the desert when the drugs began to take hold...And suddenly there was a terrible roar all around us and the sky was full of what looked like huge bats, all swooping and screeching and diving around the car, which was going about a hundred miles an hour with the top down to Las Vegas...' As knights of old buckled on armour of supernatural power, so Hunter S. Thompson enters Las Vegas armed with a veritable arsenal of 'heinous chemicals'. His perilous, drug-enhanced confrontations with casino operators, bartenders, police officers and assorted representatives of the Silent Majority have a hallucinatory humour and nightmare terror never before seen on the printed page.

Introducing the Collins Modern Classics, a series featuring some of the most significant books of recent times, books that shed light on the human experience – classics which will endure for generations to come. ‘You can turn your back on a person, but never turn your back on a drug – especially when it’s waving a razor-sharp hunting knife in your eyes’ Roaring down the desert highway, Raoul Duke and his attorney Dr. Gonzo are seeking out the dark side of the American Dream. Armed with a drug arsenal of stupendous proportions, they confront casino operators, police officers and assorted Middle Americans, in surreal, chemically enhanced encounters. Hilarious, hallucinogenic and subversive, Hunter S. Thompson’s semi-autobiographical novel is a cult classic and a masterpiece of gonzo journalism. ‘A scorching epochal sensation’ Tom Wolfe

From the bestselling author of The Rum Diary and king of "Gonzo" journalism Hunter S. Thompson, comes the definitive collection of the journalist's finest work from "Rolling Stone." "Fear and Loathing at Rolling Stone" showcases the roller-coaster of a career at the magazine that was his literary home.
"Buy the ticket, take the ride," was a favorite slogan of Hunter S. Thompson, and it pretty much defined both his work and his life. Jann S. Wenner, the outlaw journalist's friend and editor for nearly thirty-five years, has assembled articles--and a wealth of never- before-seen correspondence and internal memos from Hunter's storied tenure at "Rolling Stone"--that begin with Thompson's infamous run for sheriff of Aspen on the Freak Party ticket in 1970 and end with his final piece on the Bush-Kerry showdown of 2004. In between is Thompson's remarkable coverage of the 1972 presidential campaign and plenty of attention paid to Richard Nixon; encounters with Muhammad Ali, Bill Clinton, and the Super Bowl; and a lengthy excerpt from his acknowledged masterpiece, "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas." The definitive volume of Hunter S. Thompson's work published in the magazine, "Fear and Loathing at Rolling Stone "traces the evolution of a personal and professional relationship that helped redefine modern American journalism, presenting Thompson through a new prism as he pursued his lifelong obsession: The life and death of the American Dream.

Originally published in 1979, the first volume of the bestselling "Gonzo Papers" is now back in print. The Great Shark Hunt is Dr. Hunter S. Thompson's largest and, arguably, most important work, covering Nixon to napalm, Las Vegas to Watergate, Carter to cocaine. These essays offer brilliant commentary and outrageous humor, in signature Thompson style.

Ranging in date from the National Observer days to the era of Rolling Stone, The Great Shark Hunt offers myriad, highly charged entries, including the first Hunter S. Thompson piece to be dubbed "gonzo" -- "The Kentucky Derby Is Decadent and Depraved," which appeared in Scanlan's Monthly in 1970. From this essay a new journalistic movement sprang which would change the shape of American letters. Thompson's razor-sharp insight and crystal clarity capture the crazy, hypocritical, degenerate, and redeeming aspects of the explosive and colorful '60s and '70s.

Paul Kemp has moved from New York to the steamy heat of Puerto Rico to work at the Daily News. He starts hanging out at Al's Backyard, a local den selling booze and hamburgers to vagrant journalists who are mostly crazy drunks on the verge of quitting. Then he meets Yeamon, whose delectable girlfriend has Kemp stewing in his own lust. But the idle tension that builds up in places where men sweat twenty-four hours a day is reaching a violent breaking point.

Before there was Gonzo, there was just plain Hunter -- a precocious, earnest, and occasionally troublesome honor student in Louisville, Kentucky.
Before there was Doctor Thompson, there was Airman Thompson -- the military's answer to Grantland Rice, protecting America by covering sports for his Florida base's newspaper.
Before there was Fear and Loathing, there was Dow Jones -- that is, Thompson's early reportage for that company's National Observer, which raised the standard for hip and provocative foreign coverage.
Before there was Rolling Stone, there were job applications everywhere -- in hopes of being hired by a paper, pretty much any paper, an obsession for the starving writer with expensive tastes in alcohol, nicotine, and room service.
In The Proud Highway, readers will find a Hunter S. Thompson they've imagined but never known. With the publication of these extraordinary letters, written from the time of his high school graduation in 1955 through the triumph of his first book, Hell's Angels, in 1966, critics and fans can finally trace the development and maturation of a singular talent, one of our era's most important voices. How Thompson changed the face of contemporary nonfiction -- and of America itself -- is the mesmerizing story of The Proud Highway.

The best, the fastest, the hippest and the most unorthodox account ever published of the US presidential electoral process in all its madness and corruption. In 1972 Hunter S. Thompson, the creator and king of Gonzo journalism, covered the US presidential campaign for Rolling Stone magazine alongside the establishment newsmen of Washington. The result is a classic piece of subversive reportage and a fantastic ride on the rollercoaster of Hunter's uniquely savage imagination. In his own words, written years before Watergate: 'It is Nixon himself who represents that dark, venal and incurably violent side of the American character almost every other country in the world has learned to fear and despise.'

From the legendary journalist and creator of "Gonzo" journalism Hunter S. Thompson comes the bestselling critical look at Nixon and McGovern's 1972 presidential election.
Forty years after its original publication, "Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail '72 "remains a cornerstone of American political journalism and one of the bestselling campaign books of all time. Hunter S. Thompson's searing account of the battle for the 1972 presidency--from the Democratic primaries to the eventual showdown between George McGovern and Richard Nixon--is infused with the characteristic wit, intensity, and emotional engagement that made Thompson "the flamboyant apostle and avatar of gonzo journalism" ("The New York Times"). Hilarious, terrifying, insightful, and compulsively readable, "Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail '72 "is an epic political adventure that captures the feel of the American democratic process better than any other book ever written.

Generation of Swine, the second volume of the legendary Dr. Hunter S. Thompson's bestselling "Gonzo Papers," was first published in 1988 and is now back in print.

Here, against a backdrop of late-night tattoo sessions and soldier-of-fortune trade shows, Dr. Thompson is at his apocalyptic best -- covering emblematic events such as the 1987-88 presidential campaign, with Vice President George Bush, Sr., fighting for his life against Republican competitors like Alexander Haig, Pat Buchanan, and Pat Robertson; detailing the GOP's obsession with drugs and drug abuse; while at the same time capturing momentous social phenomena as they occurred, like the rise of cable, satellite TV, and CNN -- 24 hours of mainline news. Showcasing his inimitable talent for social and political analysis, Generation of Swine is vintage Thompson -- eerily prescient, incisive, and enduring.

Sports, politics, and sex collide in Hunter S. Thompson's wildly popular ESPN.com columns. From the author of "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas" and father of "Gonzo" journalism comes "Hey Rube."
Insightful, incendiary, outrageously brilliant, such was the man who galvanized American journalism with his radical ideas and gonzo tactics. For over half a century, Hunter S. Thompson devastated his readers with his acerbic wit and uncanny grasp of politics and history. His reign as "The Unabomber of contemporary letters" ("Time") is more legendary than ever with "Hey Rube." Fear, greed, and action abound in this hilarious, thought-provoking compilation as Thompson doles out searing indictments and uproarious rants while providing commentary on politics, sex, and sports--at times all in the same column.
With an enlightening foreword by ESPN executive editor John Walsh, critics' favorites, and never-before-published columns, "Hey Rube" follows Thompson through the beginning of the new century, revealing his queasiness over the 2000 election ("rigged and fixed from the start"); his take on professional sports (to improve Major League Baseball "eliminate the pitcher"); and his myriad controversial opinions and brutally honest observations on issues plaguing America―including the Bush administration and the inequities within the American judicial system.
"Hey Rube" gives us a lasting look at the gonzo journalist in his most organic form―unbridled, astute, and irreverent.

Brazen, incisive, and outrageous as ever, Hunter S. Thompson is back with another astonishing volume of his private correspondence, the highly anticipated follow-up to The Proud Highway. When that first book of letters appeared in 1997, Time pronounced it "deliriously entertaining"; Rolling Stone called it "brilliant beyond description"; and The New York Times celebrated its "wicked humor and bracing political conviction."

Spanning the years between 1968 and 1976, these never-before-published letters show Thompson building his legend: running for sheriff in Aspen, Colorado; creating the seminal road book Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas; twisting political reporting to new heights for Rolling Stone; and making sense of it all in the landmark Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail '72. To read Thompson's dispatches from these years -- addressed to the author's friends, enemies, editors, and creditors, and such notables as Jimmy Carter, Tom Wolfe, and Kurt Vonnegut -- is to read a raw, revolutionary eyewitness account of one of the most exciting and pivotal eras in American history.

Begun in 1959 by a then-twenty-two-year-old Hunter S. Thompson, The Rum Diary is a brilliantly tangled love story of jealousy, treachery and violent alcoholic lust in the Caribbean boomtown that was San Juan, Puerto Rico, in the late 1950s. Exuberant and mad, youthful and energetic, The Rum Diary is an outrageous, drunken romp in the spirit of Thompson's bestselling Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas and Hell's Angels.

Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas is the best chronicle of drug-soaked, addle-brained, rollicking good times ever committed to the printed page.  It is also the tale of a long weekend road trip that has gone down in the annals of American pop culture as one of the strangest journeys ever undertaken.

Now this cult classic of gonzo journalism is a major motion picture from Universal, directed by Terry Gilliam and starring Johnny Depp and Benicio del Toro.  Opens everywhere on May 22, 1998.

With ‘long hair in the wind, beards and bandanas flapping, earrings, chain whips … and Harleys flashing chrome’, the Hell’s Angels erupted into 1960s America, paralysing whole towns with fear. Determined to discover the truth behind the terrifying reputation of these marauding biker gangs, Hunter S. Thompson spent a year on the road with the Angels, documenting his hair-raising experiences with Charger Charley, Big Frank, Little Jesus and the Gimp. Hell’s Angels was the result: a masterpiece of underground reportage whose freewheeling, impressionistic style created the legend of Gonzo journalism, and made Thompson’s name as the wild man of American writing. 

Journalist, maverick, rebel and author of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas Hunter S. Thompson offers another novel of American counterculture in Hell's Angels, beautifully repackaged as part of the Penguin Essentials range. 'A phalanx of motorcycles came roaring over the hill from the west... the noise was like a landslide, or a wing of bombers passing over. Even knowing the Angels I couldn't quite handle what I was seeing. It was like Genghis Khan, Morgan's Raiders, the Wild One and the Rape of Nanking all at once.' In September, 1964 a cavalcade of motorbikes ripped through the city of Monterey, California. It was a trip destined to make Hell's Angels household names across America, infamous for their violent, drunken rampages and feared for the destruction left in their wake. Enter Hunter S. Thompson, the master of counter-culture journalism who alone had the ability and stature to ride with the Angels on their terms. In this brilliant and hair-raising expose, he journeys with the last outlaws of the American frontier. A mixture of journalism, story-telling and sheer bravado, Hell's Angels is Hunter S. Thompson at full throttle. 'Excellent documentary non-fiction' Time Out 'The maverick voice of American counterculture' Guardian 'There are only two adjectives writers care about any more - "brilliant" and "outrageous" - and Hunter has a freehold on both of them' Tom Wolfe 'The book that made Thompson's name' Loaded Hunter S. Thompson was born in Louisville, Kentucky in 1937. He began his writing career as a sports columnist in Florida and went on to work on newspapers and magazines in New York, San Juan and Rio de Janeiro. His articles appeared in Esquire, Rolling Stone magazine and the San Francisco Chronicle. He is the author of a number of books, including Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail '72, The Great Shark Hunt, Generation of Swine, The Curse of Lono, Songs of the Doomed, Better Than Sex, The Proud Highway and The Rum Diary. Hunter S. Thompson died in 2005.

'Hot damn! Let us rumble, keep going and don't slow down . . . let's have a little fun . . .' In his much-anticipated memoir, Hunter S. Thompson looks back on a long and productive life. It is a story of crazed road trips fuelled by bourbon and black acid, of insane judges and giant porcupines, of girls, guns, explosives and, of course, bikes. He also takes on his dissolute youth in Louisville; his adventures in pornography; campaigning for local office in Aspen; and what it's like to accidentally be accused of trying to kill Jack Nicholson.

"California, Labor Day weekend . . . early, with ocean fog still in the streets, outlaw motorcyclists wearing chains, shades and greasy Levis roll out from damp garages, all-night diners and cast-off one-night pads in Frisco, Hollywood, Berdoo and East Oakland, heading for the Monterey peninsula, north of Big Sur. . . The Menace is loose again."  Thus begins Hunter S. Thompson's vivid account of his experiences with California's most no-torious motorcycle gang, the Hell's Angels.   In the mid-1960s, Thompson spent almost two years living with the controversial An-gels, cycling up and down the coast, reveling in the anarchic spirit of their clan, and, as befits their name, raising hell. His book successfully captures a singular moment in American history, when the biker lifestyle was first defined, and when such countercultural movements were electrifying and horrifying America. Thompson, the creator of Gonzo journalism, writes with his usual bravado, energy, and brutal honesty, and with a nuanced and incisive eye; as The New Yorker pointed out, "For all its uninhibited and sardonic humor, Thompson's book is a thoughtful piece of work." As illuminating now as when originally published in 1967, Hell's Angels is a gripping portrait, and the best account we have of the truth behind an American legend.

"California, Labor Day weekend . . . early, with ocean fog still in the streets, outlaw motorcyclists wearing chains, shades and greasy Levis roll out from damp garages, all-night diners and cast-off one-night pads in Frisco, Hollywood, Berdoo and East Oakland, heading for the Monterey peninsula, north of Big Sur. . . The Menace is loose again."  Thus begins Hunter S. Thompson's vivid account of his experiences with California's most no-torious motorcycle gang, the Hell's Angels.   In the mid-1960s, Thompson spent almost two years living with the controversial An-gels, cycling up and down the coast, reveling in the anarchic spirit of their clan, and, as befits their name, raising hell. His book successfully captures a singular moment in American history, when the biker lifestyle was first defined, and when such countercultural movements were electrifying and horrifying America. Thompson, the creator of Gonzo journalism, writes with his usual bravado, energy, and brutal honesty, and with a nuanced and incisive eye; as The New Yorker pointed out, "For all its uninhibited and sardonic humor, Thompson's book is a thoughtful piece of work." As illuminating now as when originally published in 1967, Hell's Angels is a gripping portrait, and the best account we have of the truth behind an American legend.







From the Hardcover edition.

A compilation of the subversive, important and entertaining writer of Hunter S. Thompson - renowned American writer of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas 'It would not do to be found in the desert under these circumstances: firing wildly into the cactus from a car full of drugs...' Fear and Loathing at Rolling Stone showcases the evolution of the writer of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas and Hell's Angels, through his work at the magazine that he helped to put on the map. Jann S. Wenner, Hunter Thompson's editor and friend for nearly thirty-five years, has chosen the pieces, including many never collected before. They show how Thompson's Rolling Stone writing, when taken as a whole, forms an extended, allusive autobiography of the writer himself as he pursues his lifelong obsession, the king-hell story of them all: The Death of the American Dream.

FROM POET RON WHITEHEAD: Margaret A. Harrell has done it again. In her brutally compassionately explicitly honest second autobiography "KEEP THIS QUIET TOO More Adventures with Hunter S. Thompson, Milton Klonsky, Jan Mensaert," Harrell manages to repeatedly pull the rug out from under the reader. She travels from North Carolina to New York City to Morocco to Belgium to India to Switzerland to Owl Farm, and many other places, ...in search of her self. From depth psychology to dream analysis to hangoutologies to ecstatic love making to out of body astral travels to spirit guides, adventures and misadventures, she is guided and guides herself ever homeward to her own heart and soul. Margaret A. Harrell's new, second, autobiography, like volume one, is a masterpiece. I thank her for sharing, openly honestly, so many intimate details of her journey.NEW from Beat Scene # 70, England. Reviewed by Eric Jacobs: Following on from the whirlwind that was volume one, Margaret Harrell returns with more adventures involving three particular men in her life, Milton Klonsky, Jan Mensaert and Hunter S. Thompson. She was a top editor in her time - she worked on Thompson's "Hell's Angels" - and this provided the door through which she stepped into the lives of this trio. Or should that be the other way around? . . . It is chaotic, shambolic, impulsive, complete and utter madness at times here. Klonsky is the steadiest, a kind of mentor . . . father figure to Harrell. Mensaert is mercurial, frustruating, and often suicidal and then she marries him. Thompson, perhaps the one writer with the biggest profile in American letters, is, well, Hunter S. Thompson as only he was. Mad as a box of mad things, living for the moment, furiously living and she is drawn to his flame. A passionately written memoir that doesn't sit around being fit and proper and straight laced. . . . As a key to the lives of these threewriters it is idiosyncratic and in an age where blandness is the norm it is a pleasure to go on her journey and find out a little about what made these men tick and what drove her to them.FROM MIDWEST BOOK REVIEW: "Keep THIS Quiet Too " is a real-life saga of living and learning with eyes and ears open. At times adventurous, at times sensual, "Keep This Quiet Too " hinges upon the complexities of human relationships, especially the challenges posed by the heart-wrenching feelings of love that may or may not be fully requited. Highly recommended.SAN FRANCISCO BOOK REVIEW: an honest and unflinching examination of the choices we makeBACK COVER: Margaret Harrell baited the hook and I bit. Boy did I bite. . . She used titillation, and a masterful way of revealing herself to build engrossment, starting with"'Keep This Quiet " ANY thinking, living person will be locked in from the beginning. A knowledge of the three men is not a must. She oozes sexuality, sensuality and I believe these traits go towards interweaving the three men. I believe it to be spellbinding. A hot sweaty tango of words. The bottom line is this. Not many books fulfill my reading needs. By this I mean covering a range of emotion. "Keep This Quiet Too " did it for me. I loved it - Martin Flynn, owner of HST BooksBACK COVER: A book with so many dimensions is a gift with many surprises in it - Chris Van de Velde, therapeutic coach

The 50th-anniversary edition of the classic, savagely comic account of a trip to Las Vegas that came to represent what happened to America in the 1960s—and a founding document of “gonzo journalism”—featuring the original artwork by Ralph Steadman and a new introduction by Caity Weaver

First published in Rolling Stone magazine in 1971, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas is told through Hunter S. Thompson’s story of an assignment he undertook with his attorney to visit Las Vegas and “check it out.” The book stands as the final word on the highs and lows of that decade, one of the defining works of our time, and a stylistic and journalistic tour de force. As Christopher Lehmann-Haupt wrote in The New York Times, it has “a kind of mad, corrosive prose poetry that picks up where Norman Mailer’s An American Dream left off and explores what Tom Wolfe left out.”

This 50th-anniversary Modern Library edition features Ralph Steadman’s original drawings, a new introduction by New York Times writer Caity Weaver, and three companion pieces selected by Thompson: “Jacket Copy for Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas,” “Strange Rumblings in Aztlan,” and “The Kentucky Derby Is Decadent and Depraved.”

" California, Labor Day weekend . . . early, with ocean fog still in the streets, outlaw motorcyclists wearing chains, shades and greasy Levis roll out from damp garages, all-night diners and cast-off one-night pads in Frisco, Hollywood, Berdoo and East Oakland, heading for the Monterey peninsula, north of Big Sur. . . The Menace is loose again." Thus begins Hunter S. Thompson's vivid account of his experiences with California's most no-torious motorcycle gang, the Hell's Angels. In the mid-1960s, Thompson spent almost two years living with the controversial An-gels, cycling up and down the coast, reveling in the anarchic spirit of their clan, and, as befits their name, raising hell. His book successfully captures a singular moment in American history, when the biker lifestyle was first defined, and when such countercultural movements were electrifying and horrifying America. Thompson, the creator of Gonzo journalism, writes with his usual bravado, energy, and brutal honesty, and with a nuanced and incisive eye; as The New Yorker pointed out, " For all its uninhibited and sardonic humor, Thompson's book is a thoughtful piece of work." As illuminating now as when originally published in 1967, Hell's Angels is a gripping portrait, and the best account we have of the truth behind an American legend.

A compilation of letters written between 1968 and 1976, sent from gonzo king Hunter S. Thompson to his friends, enemies, editors and creditors, including Jimmy Carter, Ralph Steadman, Tom Wolfe and Kurt Vonnegut. As well as an eyewitness account of political and social history in America, the letters are a fascinating glimpse of the inner workings of this unique author.