Table of Contents

Preface ix
Acknowledgments xv
Introduction 1
1. What Is a Cigarette? 23
2. Cigarettes Are Sublime 51
3. Zeno's Paradox 77
4. The Devil in Carmen 105
5. The Soldier's Friend 135
6. "L'air du temps" 157
A Polemical Conclusion 181
Notes 195
Works Cited 203
Index 207

About the Author

Richard Klein is Professor of French at Cornell University and editor of Diacritics. He quit smoking while writing Cigarettes Are Sublime and has been nicotine-free ever since.

Reviews

"In "Cigarettes are Sublime," a cult classic of the literature of tobacco, Richard Klein connects the allure of cigarettes precisely to their dangers . . . ."
--Hendrik Hertzberg, "New Yorker"