1973 First British Commonwealth Edtn THE CONNOISSEUR'S HANDBOOK OF MARIJUANA By William Daniel Drake Jr. Illus. Various

1973 First British Commonwealth Edition

THE CONNOISSEUR'S HANDBOOK OF MARIJUANA
By William Daniel Drake Jr.

KEY DETAILS
Condition: Very Good
Format: Hardcover, Oblong Format 8vo; 165 x 235 mm
Published By: Peter Owen Limited, London, 1973
Language: English
Illustrated By: Various
Collation: [2], 254, [2] pp. ; Extensively illustrated throughout in black and white.
Dust Jacket: Yes, Good
ISBN: 0 7206 0043 X
SKU: BTETM0002572
Shipping Info: Approximate Package Dimensions H: 12.5, L: 30, W: 25 (Units: cm), W: 2Kg
Tracked Shipping, Insurance Coverage as per Customer Request

DESCRIPTION
The Connoisseur's Handbook of Marijuana
The First British Commonwealth Edition of William Daniel Drake Jr.'s The Connoisseur's Handbook of Marijuana, published in London by Peter Owen in 1973, two years after the original American edition issued in San Francisco by Straight Arrow Books, the publishing arm associated with Rolling Stone. Far broader in conception than a conventional cultivation manual, Drake's book is an ambitious and richly illustrated survey of cannabis as a historical, literary, botanical, medicinal and cultural phenomenon. It brings together material ranging from ancient accounts and nineteenth-century drug literature to contemporary American cannabis culture, scientific debate, cultivation and cookery. The volume is strikingly designed in the visual language of the early 1970s counterculture. Photographs, historical reproductions, drawings, cartoons and psychedelic graphics appear throughout, including material concerned with cannabis in India and the Middle East, the Indian Hemp Drugs Commission of 1893–94, American prohibition and drug policy, contemporary youth culture, botany and cultivation. This British edition is particularly attractive in its original Keith Cunningham-designed black dust jacket, with the large green cannabis leaf against a gold oval to the front and a line of cannabis plants across the rear panel. The jacket design and unusual oblong format give the book considerable visual presence and make it as much an artefact of early-1970s counterculture publishing as a reference work on cannabis. A less frequently encountered British hardcover edition of one of the more substantial and visually distinctive cannabis books of the period. COLLECTING & CULTURAL INTEREST The book occupies an interesting position at the intersection of several collecting fields: cannabis and drug history, psychedelic and counterculture literature, underground publishing, 1960s–70s social history, alternative medicine and graphic design. The text itself remained available through later American paperback issues, but the Peter Owen British hardcover in its original illustrated dust jacket is appreciably less frequently encountered than ordinary Straight Arrow paperback copies. Its appeal therefore lies not simply in the information it contains but in the particular combination of British first edition status, original jacket, oblong format, extensive illustration and unmistakable early-1970s countercultural design. A visually striking and substantial document from the period in which cannabis was moving from the margins of underground literature into wider cultural, scientific and political debate.

CONDITION, COLLATION & COPY NOTES
; Good to Very Good original dust jacket A Very Good copy of the 1973 First British Commonwealth Edition in its original Peter Owen dust jacket. The hardcover volume itself remains sound and well preserved. Binding firm, with the text block substantially clean and the illustrated contents presenting very well. Pages show light age-toning and occasional minor signs of handling consistent with a book of this period. Some toning and marking is visible around the edges of the text block. The original dust jacket is substantially complete and remains particularly attractive, retaining strong black, white, green and gold colour and excellent overall visual presence. Jacket with general surface rubbing and light scuffing to the glossy black finish, together with edge and corner wear. There is more noticeable creasing and chipping around the head of the spine and small losses and wear to the upper corners. The principal front and rear designs remain unaffected by any major loss. Front jacket flap price-clipped, with a small area of old label or adhesive residue toward the lower portion. Rear flap present, retaining Peter Owen's contemporary advertisements for related countercultural and literary titles. Despite the faults, the dust jacket remains an unusually effective example of early-1970s graphic design and presents extremely well when shelved or displayed. ILLUSTRATION & DESIGN The volume is extensively illustrated throughout with photographs, historical reproductions, cartoons, psychedelic and underground graphics, and botanical material drawn from numerous sources. Terry Rutledge is specifically credited with the cultivation drawings, continuing his association with Drake from The Cultivator's Handbook of Marijuana, for which he served as the principal illustrator. The volume is extensively illustrated throughout, combining historical material with imagery drawn directly from the counterculture of the late 1960s and early 1970s. Illustrations include photographs, cartoons, botanical and cultivation drawings, historical reproductions, psychedelic and underground graphics, contemporary American imagery and material documenting cannabis use and attitudes across different periods and cultures. Among the particularly characteristic images are psychedelic compositions reflecting contemporary underground art, an elaborate “Shiva's Dance of Life” illustration, photographs relating to American cannabis activism and prohibition, and numerous botanical and cultivation images. The copyright page specifically credits: Jacket design: Keith Cunningham Cover photograph: Peter D'Agostino Cultivation drawings: Terry Rutledge The combination of documentary photography, historical source material and distinctly countercultural graphic design is one of the book's strongest features and substantially enhances its appeal as a period object. Please see Photos as part of condition report.

REFERENCES
William Daniel Drake Jr., The Connoisseur's Handbook of Marijuana, Straight Arrow Books, San Francisco, 1971. Rolling Stone, 7 December 1972 — Straight Arrow Books advertisement identifying the paperback as the successor to the original $10 hardcover edition. Ken Lopez Bookseller, Vietnam/The Sixties catalogue — describes the 1971 Straight Arrow first as a heavily illustrated small oblong quarto published by Rolling Stone magazine's publishing arm. Peter Owen Limited, London, 1973 — copyright page of the present copy: “First British Commonwealth edition 1973.” ISBN 0 7206 0043 X.

SYNOPSIS
The Connoisseur’s Handbook of Marijuana is a wide-ranging study of cannabis that places the plant within a much broader historical and cultural setting than a conventional cultivation manual.

Drake traces cannabis and hemp through ancient and later cultural traditions, incorporates literary and historical accounts, and devotes substantial attention to the Indian Hemp Drugs Commission Report of 1893–94. He then turns to twentieth-century America, examining contemporary scientific debate, public attitudes and the conflict surrounding marijuana at the beginning of the 1970s.

Later sections cover cannabis botany and cultivation, followed by cannabis cookery and a guide to further reading. Extensively illustrated throughout, the book combines historical source material, practical information and contemporary countercultural perspectives, making it as much a record of changing attitudes towards cannabis as a practical handbook. PUBLICATION HISTORY The work was first published in San Francisco in 1971 by Straight Arrow Books, the book-publishing operation associated with Rolling Stone. The original Straight Arrow issue appeared in hardcover, followed by a considerably cheaper paperback. A December 1972 Rolling Stone advertisement specifically promoted the paperback as the version of Straight Arrow's earlier $10 hardcover edition, establishing that the British Peter Owen edition should not be described as the worldwide first edition. The present edition was published by Peter Owen Limited of London in 1973 and is explicitly designated on the copyright page: “First British Commonwealth edition 1973.” It retains Drake's 1971 copyright and was printed in Great Britain by Redwood Press Limited of Trowbridge, Wiltshire. The British issue has its own distinctive Peter Owen dust-jacket treatment and ISBN 0 7206 0043 X, distinguishing it bibliographically and visually from the American Straight Arrow editions.

AUTHOR BIO
William Daniel Drake Jr., often known as Bill Drake, was an American writer closely associated with the first generation of modern cannabis literature. His books appeared at a period when information concerning cannabis cultivation, history and pharmacology was moving from underground and specialist circles into the rapidly expanding counterculture publishing industry. Alongside The Connoisseur's Handbook of Marijuana, Drake became particularly associated with The Cultivator's Handbook of Marijuana and later The International Cultivator's Handbook. His writing combined practical horticultural knowledge with a broader interest in cannabis history, consciousness and personal autonomy. The importance of Drake's work lies partly in its timing. His cannabis books appeared before the emergence of the enormous specialist cultivation literature of later decades, when reliable information was comparatively difficult to obtain and publication itself formed part of the cultural challenge to prohibition. The Connoisseur's Handbook represents the broadest expression of this approach, placing cannabis cultivation within a much larger historical and cultural framework. Contemporary and later descriptions of the 1971 edition identify it as a substantial 254-page illustrated survey encompassing cannabis history, botany, cultivation and cookery.

ILLUSTRATOR
Various
Illustrated: Extensively throughout in black and white Jacket Design: Keith Cunningham Cover Photograph: Peter D'Agostino Cultivation Drawings: Terry Rutledge Terry Rutledge an illustrator associated with Bill Drake's pioneering cannabis and cultivation literature of the late 1960s and 1970s. He supplied the illustrations for Drake's early The Cultivator's Handbook of Marijuana, first published 1970, producing detailed botanical and practical drawings that helped make the work one of the earliest extensively illustrated guides to cannabis cultivation. Rutledge's work was subsequently incorporated into Drake's broader The Connoisseur's Handbook of Marijuana, where he is specifically credited for the cultivation drawings, and his illustrations continued to appear in later editions of Drake's cultivation works. He was again credited as an illustrator in Drake's later The Cultivators Handbook of Natural Tobacco. Reliable biographical information about Rutledge himself is scarce, but his surviving work forms a distinctive part of the graphic vocabulary of early cannabis literature, combining botanical observation with the informal visual language of 1970s counterculture publishing.