These are some of the more accessible books and documentaries that I consulted during my research that may be of interest to the reader. Further sources can be found in the endnotes.
Ackroyd, Peter. Poe: A Life Cut Short. New York: Nan A. Talese, 2009.
Adams, Jad. Madder Music, Stronger Wine: The Life of Ernest Dowson, Poet and Decadent. London: I. B. Tauris, 2000.
Bailey, Blake. Cheever: A Life. New York: Knopf, 2009.
Baker, Phil. The Book of Absinthe: A Cultural History. New York: Grove Press, 2003.
Beckerman, Marty. The Heming Way: How to Unleash the Booze-Inhaling, Animal-Slaughtering, War-Glorifying, Hairy-Chested, Retro-Sexual Legend Within, Just Like Papa! New York: St. Martin’s Griffin, 2012.
Boon, Marcus. The Road of Excess: A History of Writers on Drugs. Boston: Harvard University Press, 2002.
Brinnin, John Malcom. Dylan Thomas in America: An Intimate Journal. New York: Little, Brown and Company, 1955.
Bruccoli, Matthew J., and Judith S. Baughman. Conversations with F. Scott Fitzgerald. Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 2003.
Charters, Ann. Kerouac: A Biography. New York: St. Martin’s Griffin, 1994.
Dardis, Tom. The Thirsty Muse: Alcohol and the American Writer. New York: Ticknor and Fields, 1989.
Davenport-Hines, Richard. The Pursuit of Oblivion: A Global History of Narcotics. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 2004.
Davison, Peter. The Fading Smile: Poets in Boston from Robert Lowell to Sylvia Plath. New York: W. W. Norton, 1994.
Day, Barry. Dorothy Parker: In Her Own Words. Lanham, MD: Taylor Trade Publishing, 2004.
Denham, Alice. Sleeping With Bad Boys. Las Vegas, NV: Book Republic Press, 2006.
Eisler, Benita. Byron: Child of Passion, Fool of Fame. New York: Vintage Books, 1999.
Ellis, Bret Easton. Less Than Zero. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1985.
Epstein, Daniel Mark. What Lips My Lips Have Kissed: The Loves and Love Poems of Edna St. Vincent Millay. New York: Holt, 2002.
Fitzgerald, F. Scott. On Booze. New York: Picador USA, 2011.
Frey, James. A Million Little Pieces. New York: Random House, 2003.
George-Warren, Holly. The Rolling Stone Book of the Beats: The Beat Generation and American Culture. New York: Hyperion, 2000.
Hay, Daisy. Young Romantics. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2010.
Hemmings, F. W. J. Baudelaire the Damned. London: Hamish Hamilton, 1982.
Hotchner, A. E., ed. The Good Life According to Hemingway. New York: HarperCollins, 2008.
Jack, Belinda. George Sand: A Woman’s Life Writ Large. New York: Knopf, 2000.
Lever, Maurice. Sade: A Biography. Translated by Arthur Goldhammer. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1993.
The Life and Times of Allen Ginsberg. DVD. Directed by Jerry Aronson. New Yorker Films, 1997.
Mariani, Paul L. Dream Song: Life of John Berryman. New York: William Morrow, 1990.
McInerney, Jay. Bright Lights, Big City. New York: Vintage Books, 1984.
McKenna, Neil. The Secret Life of Oscar Wilde. New York: Basic Books, 1991.
Meade, Marion. Dorothy Parker: What Fresh Hell Is This? New York: Penguin Books, 1989.
Middlebrook, Diane Wood. Anne Sexton: A Biography. New York: Vintage Books, 1992.
Milford, Nancy. Savage Beauty: The Life of Edna St. Vincent Millay. New York: Random House, 2001.
Mizener, Arthur. The Far Side of Paradise: A Biography of F. Scott Fitzgerald. New York: Houghton Mifflin, 1986.
Morgan, Ted. Literary Outlaw: The Life and Times of William S. Burroughs. New York: Henry Holt, 1988.
Morrison, Robert. The English Opium-Eater. New York: Pegasus Books, 2010.
New York in the 50s. DVD. Directed by Betsy Blankenbaker. First Run Features, 2001.
Olsen, Eric, and Glenn Schaeffer. We Wanted to Be Writers: Life, Love, and Literature at the Iowa Writers’ Workshop. New York: Skyhorse Publishing, 2011.
Plant, Sadie. Writing on Drugs. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1999.
Plimpton, George. Truman Capote. New York: Anchor Books, 1997.
Robb, Graham. Balzac: A Biography. New York: W. W. Norton, 1996.
. Rimbaud: A Biography. New York: W. W. Norton, 2000.
Rollyson, Carl. The Lives of Norman Mailer: A Biography. New York: Paragon House, 1991.
Sandars, Mary F. Honoré de Balzac: His Life and Writings. New York: Dodd, Mead & Company, 1904.
Sisman, Adam. The Friendship: Wordsworth and Coleridge. New York: Viking, 2007.
Sklenicka, Carol. Raymond Carver: A Writer’s Life. New York: Scribner, 2009.
Symons, Arthur. The Symbolist Movement in Literature. New York: E. P. Dutton, 1919.
This Is Not an Exit: The Fictional World of Bret Easton Ellis. VHS. Directed by Gerald Fox. First Run Features, 2000.
Thompson, Hunter S. Fear and Loathing at Rolling Stone: The Essential Writing of Hunter S. Thompson. Edited by Jann Wenner. New York: Simon and Schuster, 2011.
Wakefield, Dan. New York in the 50s. New York: Houghton Mifflin/Seymour Lawrence, 1992.
Wall, Geoffrey. Flaubert: A Life. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2002.
Wasson, Ben. Count No ’Count: Flashbacks to Faulkner. Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 1983.
Wenner, Jann S., and Corey Seymour. Gonzo: The Life of Hunter S. Thompson. New York: Little, Brown, 2007.
Wolfe, Tom. The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test. New York: Picador, 1968.
Wurtzel, Elizabeth. Bitch. New York: Doubleday, 1998.
. More, Now, Again. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2002.
. Prozac Nation. New York: Riverhead, 1994.