Hunter S. Thompson is the perversely thrilling gonzo journalist whose every utterance expresses fear and loathing of the American Establishment and every principle that schools of journalism stand for. As he acknowledges in a 1996 prefatory note, this collection of "frenzied berserk letters", many of them written in anxious insomnia to persuade editors to send money, make it clear why, between 1955 and 1967, "it was no accident that I was fired from every job .. . and was evicted from every place where I tried to live". Among the writers who influenced his utterly non-objective reporting style were Mark Twain, H.L. Mencken and Orwell. Even before the famous drug- and booze-fuelled expedition to Los Vegas in search of the American Dream, Thompson was a maverick who startled and inspired the freelance herd. The letters also reveal that he has always been a covert moralist.