Dope Darling (1918) is a novel by David Garnett. Published using the pseudonym Leda Burke, Dope Darling is a story of sex, drugs, and music set just before the outbreak of the First World War. “She was always asked to all the parties in the flashy bohemian world in which she moved. No dance, gambling party or secret doping orgy was complete without her, Under the effect of cocaine which she took more and more recklessly, she became inspired with a wild frenzy, and danced like a bacchante, drank off a bottle of champagne and played a thousand wild antics.” Claire is the talk of the town when she meets Roy at a London nightclub. Leaving his fiancée Beatrice, Roy marries the bohemian starlet in only three weeks, entering a world of excess and excitement beyond his wildest dreams. As the cocaine and booze begin to wear him down, and as Britain prepares for war with Germany, he begins to wonder if enlistment could provide him a means of escape. With a beautifully designed cover and professionally typeset manuscript, this edition of David Garnett’s Dope Darling is a classic work of British literature reimagined for modern readers.
