Thirty years in hell : or, The confessions of a drug fiend

An ancient author tells us somewhere with the tone of a pedagogue, that if you have not done anything worthy of being recorded, at least write something worthy of being read. It is a precept as beautiful as a diamond cut in England; but it cannot be applied to me, because I have written neither a novel northelifeofanillustriouscharacter. Worthyornot,mylife is my subject and my subject is my life. I have lived without dreaming that I should take a fancy to write these confessions, and for that very reason the effort may claim from the reader an interest and a sympathy which they would not have obtained.