Overview
Presenter George Snook will explore the collection of drug literature and artifacts that he has assembled since the mid-1960s. An impulse purchase of de Quincey’s English Opium Eater in a used bookstore in London sparked a lifelong interest in drugs and their influence on culture. This journey has led him to consider how drug experimentation has shaped literary and musical traditions, criminal justice systems, and the treatment of ethnic and cultural minorities.
Date: Monday, August 3, 8PM EST
Guest Presenter: George Snook, Educator and Vice President of The Manuscript Society
Host: Gerald “Jay” Gaidmore
Presenter
George Snook: My earliest memories are of a succession of Boston and Cambridge apartments. My father was in medical school, my mother was the breadwinner, and I was in school at the age of two. After completing my MA in European History in 1975, I began a career in teaching. In 2021, at the age of seventy-one, I retired.
For as long as I can remember, I have loved the study of the past. My father and mother certainly encouraged this through their passion for travel and collecting. As a child, much of what I read was historical fiction and biography; history was a grand adventure. Beyond the classroom, I have indulged my interest in history in several ways. I have volunteered on archaeological digs in Europe; I have participated in medieval and Revolutionary War re-enactment groups; I have taken post-graduate courses in Arts History, Criminology, and literature; I have traveled whenever and wherever the means and opportunities presented themselves, and I have collected rare books, antiques, and, of course, manuscripts.
Since retiring, my wife and I have purchased a rambling colonial farmhouse in Massachusetts, and we split our time between it and our apartment in New York. I take blacksmithing and drawing classes, garden, and do what a bossy cattle dog, two cats, and an eight-year-old granddaughter tell me to do.
Registration
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