- Confessions Of An English Opium Eater - Thomas de Quincey
This was actually quite interesting, if a bit self-absorbed and naval-gazing. Published in 1820 or so, its copyright has expired so it's free on the Kindle and here, if you want to read it online. It is the story of a young man from a wealthy family who rejects it all and goes travelling (out in the world and in his mind), lives in abject poverty despite powerful friends & connections, and finds that he really likes opium.
Personally, I didn't care that much for his life story but loves the paragraphs like the one below, where he talks about his opium experiences:
Under the connecting feeling of tropical heat and vertical sunlights I brought together all creatures, birds, beasts, reptiles, all trees and plants, usages and appearances, that are found in all tropical regions, and assembled them together in China or Indostan. From kindred feelings, I soon brought Egypt and all her gods under the same law. I was stared at, hooted at, grinned at, chattered at, by monkeys, by parroquets, by cockatoos. I ran into pagodas, and was fixed for centuries at the summit or in secret rooms: I was the idol; I was the priest; I was worshipped; I was sacrificed. I fled from the wrath of Brama through all the forests of Asia: Vishnu hated me: Seeva laid wait for me. I came suddenly upon Isis and Osiris: I had done a deed, they said, which the ibis and the crocodile trembled at. I was buried for a thousand years in stone coffins, with mummies and sphynxes, in narrow chambers at the heart of eternal pyramids. I was kissed, with cancerous kisses, by crocodiles; and laid, confounded with all unutterable slimy things, amongst reeds and Nilotic mud.