Read Hunter S. Thompson’s Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, as It Was Originally Published in Rolling Stone (1971)

Last week, we revis­it­ed John­ny Dep­p’s read­ing of the famous “wave speech” from Hunter S. Thomp­son’s Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. Would­n’t you know it, a week lat­er, we’ve dis­cov­ered that you can read the entire text of the orig­i­nal nov­el, online, for free.  The Gonzo jour­nal­ism clas­sic first appeared as a two-part series in Rolling Stone mag­a­zine in Novem­ber 1971, com­plete with illus­tra­tions from Ralph Stead­man, before being pub­lished as a book in 1972.  Rolling Stone has post­ed the orig­i­nal ver­sion on its web site. The 23,000 word man­u­script famous­ly begins:

We were some­where around Barstow on the edge of the desert when the drugs began to take hold. I remem­ber say­ing some­thing like “I feel a bit light­head­ed; maybe you should dri­ve. …” 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 100 miles an hour with the top down to Las Vegas. And a voice was scream­ing: “Holy Jesus! What are these god­damn ani­mals?”

Down the line, you can find this text per­ma­nent­ly list­ed in our col­lec­tion of Free eBooks, as well as in our List of 10 Free Arti­cles by Hunter S. Thomp­son That Span His Gonzo Jour­nal­ist Career (1965–2005). Enjoy.

via @SteveSilberman

If you would like to sign up for Open Culture’s free email newslet­ter, please find it here. Or fol­low our posts on Threads, Face­book and BlueSky.

If you would like to sup­port the mis­sion of Open Cul­ture, con­sid­er mak­ing a dona­tion to our site. It’s hard to rely 100% on ads, and your con­tri­bu­tions will help us con­tin­ue pro­vid­ing the best free cul­tur­al and edu­ca­tion­al mate­ri­als to learn­ers every­where. You can con­tribute through Pay­Pal, Patre­on, and Ven­mo (@openculture). Thanks!


by | Permalink | Comments (2) |

Sup­port Open Cul­ture

We’re hop­ing to rely on our loy­al read­ers rather than errat­ic ads. To sup­port Open Cul­ture’s edu­ca­tion­al mis­sion, please con­sid­er mak­ing a dona­tion. We accept Pay­Pal, Ven­mo (@openculture), Patre­on and Cryp­to! Please find all options here. We thank you!


Comments (2)
You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.
  • Audrianna Lennon says:

    I love this movie and this book, in a mat­ter of fact im read­ing it right at this very moment! R.I.P. Hunter S. Thomp­son

  • Scottyrebels says:

    NEVER, NEVER , watch this film while high on Ket­a­mine.
    Whoooo!
    What an expe­ri­ence,…
    Love Hunter , his words late bril­liant, hilar­i­ous and extreme­ly insight­ful. Anoth­er of the true orig­i­nals

Leave a Reply

Quantcast
Open Culture was founded by Dan Colman.