I am a big fan of English literature, especially that of the 19th century. Although I only recently began taking snuff, I have been aware of it as long as I can remember, probably due to so many references to it in literature. References which come to mind off the top of my head are Sherlock Holmes(not Holmes himself, but I recall characters taking out their snuffboxes), Rudyard Kipling’s Kim in which the Lama takes snuff, and Travels in Arabia Deserta in which the fortress guard sits down by the fire every night with his snuffbox to talk and drink coffee with his friends. I think it would be enjoyable to start a collection of snuff quotes from literature…

Lord Dorwin is mentioned to be a snuffer in Isaac Asimov’s Foundation

A couple of the Characters in Dickens Pickwick Papers use Snuff

Good topic, thanks for starting it. From the Dubliners by James Joyce:

The next morning after breakfast I went down to look at the little house in Great Britain Street. It was an unassuming shop, registered under the vague name of Drapery. The drapery consisted mainly of children’s bootees and umbrellas; and on ordinary days a notice used to hang in the window, saying: Umbrellas Re-covered. No notice was visible now for the shutters were up. A crape bouquet was tied to the doorknocker with ribbon. Two poor women and a telegram boy were reading the card pinned on the crape. I also approached and read:_July 1st, 1895 The Rev. James Flynn (formerly of S. Catherine’s Church, Meath Street), aged sixty-five years. R. I. P._The reading of the card persuaded me that he was dead and I was disturbed to find myself at check. Had he not been dead I would have gone into the little dark room behind the shop to find him sitting in his arm-chair by the fire, nearly smothered in his great-coat. Perhaps my aunt would have given me a packet of High Toast for him and this present would have roused him from his stupefied doze. It was always I who emptied the packet into his black snuff-box for his hands trembled too much to allow him to do this without spilling half the snuff about the floor. Even as he raised his large trembling hand to his nose little clouds of smoke dribbled through his fingers over the front of his coat. It may have been these constant showers of snuff which gave his ancient priestly garments their green faded look for the red handkerchief, blackened, as it always was, with the snuff-stains of a week, with which he tried to brush away the fallen grains, was quite inefficacious.

From The Story of Doctor Dolittle by Hugh Lofting:

“Ask the boy if he has anything in his pockets that belonged to his uncle, will you, please?” So the Doctor asked him. And the boy showed them a gold ring which he wore on a piece of string around his neck because it was too big for his finger. He said his uncle gave it to him when they saw the pirates coming. Jip smelt the ring and said, “That’s no good. Ask him if he has anything else that belonged to his uncle.” Then the boy took from his pocket a great, big red handkerchief and said, “This was my uncle’s too.” As soon as the boy pulled it out, Jip shouted, “SNUFF, by Jingo!–Black Rappee snuff. Don’t you smell it? His uncle took snuff-- Ask him, Doctor.” The Doctor questioned the boy again; and he said, “Yes. My uncle took a lot of snuff.” “Fine!” said Jip. “The man’s as good as found. 'Twill be as easy as stealing milk from a kitten. Tell the boy I’ll find his uncle for him in less than a week. Let us go upstairs and see which way the wind is blowing.” “But it is dark now,” said the Doctor. “You can’t find him in the dark!” “I don’t need any light to look for a man who smells of Black Rappee snuff,” said Jip as he climbed the stairs. “If the man had a hard smell, like string, now–or hot water, it would be different. But SNUFF!–Tut, tut!”

There are some fascinating mentions of snuff on the Charles Darwin site, not strictly literature but very interesting. Search on snuff taking and you get loads of biographical stuff from his son as well as some little time capsules like lists of things not to forget on his journeys. Seems he liked Princes type and Irish, and tried as hard as we have done with cigs to get off the habit, which he thought was bad for him. At one point he kept the snuff box locked in his cellar with the key in the attic to deter him, and at one time actually kept his box with the local vicar.

Great Britain Street in Joyce’s short story was naturally renamed after Independence. Little Britain Street is still there.

And the lovely converstaion between Sam Weller and and a footman in Pickwick Papers: ‘Oh, very much so, indeed, sir,’ said the powdered-headed footman, taking Sam’s remarks as a high compliment. ‘Very much so indeed. Do you do anything in this way, Sir?’ inquired the tall footman, producing a small snuff-box with a fox’s head on the top of it. ‘Not without sneezing,’ replied Sam. ‘Why, it IS difficult, sir, I confess,’ said the tall footman. ‘It may be done by degrees, Sir. Coffee is the best practice. I carried coffee, Sir, for a long time. It looks very like rappee, sir.’ (Dickens introduces snuff fairly frequently in his works. I don’t have any proof but it seems likely the old gent was a snuffer himself?)

Not a quote, and not really literature, but I read a fascinating bio of the real Sir Richard Burton a few years ago, and it said that this truly great man was never without his silver snuff box.

The actor Richard Burton?

Sir Richard Bruton? From The Life of Sir Richard Burton by Thomas Wright:

128. Slaving at the Athenaeum, May 1885. “In May 1885, Burton obtained leave of absence, and on arriving in England he made various arrangements about the printing of The Arabian Nights and continued the work of translation. When in London he occupied rooms at the St. James’s Hotel (now the Berkeley) in Piccadilly. He used to say that the St. James’s Hotel was the best place in the world in which to do literary work, and that the finest place in the whole world was the corner of Piccadilly. Still, he spent most of his time, as usual, at the Athenaeum. Mr. H. R. Tedder, the Secretary, and an intimate friend of Burton’s, tells me that “He would work at the round table in the library for hours and hours—with nothing for refreshment except a cup of coffee and a box of snuff, which always stood at his side;” and that he was rarely without a heavy stick with a whistle at one end and a spike at the other—the spike being to keep away dogs when he was travelling in hot countries.”

An early reference to Fribourg’s, from John Pinkerton’s ‘Walpoliana’ about Horace Walpole, published in 1799: ‘Ater his coffee he tasted nothing; but his snuff box of tabac d’etrennes, from Fribourg’s, was not forgotten and was replenished from a cannister lodged in an ancient marble urn of great thickness, which stood in the window seat, and served to secure its moisture and rich flavour’ d’etrennes is carnation snuff I believe.

I will give a prize of a snuff box if anyone can get the following author and book: ‘Father Anton opened his desk drawer and took out a small rosewood and silver snuff box. He asked ‘You take snuff?’ ‘No thanks, but I wouldn’t mind a cigarette’ He passed me the cigarette box, and then snorted two generous pinches of snuff up his cavernous nostrils. I always thought people sneezed after they took snuff, but all Father Anton did was snort like a mule, and relax further into his creaky revolving chair’

@snuffster: Good form! That quote sounds somewhat familiar, but I can’t really place it. Could be my brain playing tricks… I’ll follow this with great interest.

Ummm… Maybe “The Cardinal’s Snuff Box”?

Is it Sisters, by Ada Cambridge?

Sorry guys, keep going!

dunno where the quote is from, but the work of Gogol is pretty replete with snuff references. I remember one judge having an upper lip that curled up to form a sort of ledge, and the judge kept a mound of snuff on it at all times. periodically he would send his nose down to his lip to seek out more snuff.

I think your snuff box is safe, Nigel.

The Fall from Grace of an Initiate and a Country

Nigel you wrote it. In your criticaly well recieved comeing of age novel “Father Anton’s lessons in minor plant based vice”. Personaly I think you could’ve been a writer if you’d have picked a better title. (when you can’t get by on facts go for flatery!)

Ive got to say in all fairness it is a very obscure book and as I said earlier pure chance that its been lying around for years since I was a kid, when I read this thread it just brought it to mind. If that was a suggestion Pieter…I’m afraid not. Well, for the pure silliness of it this offer will remain open indefinately and a collectable Victorian papier mache box awaits!

Bob, nice try!!

I’ll give a single clue: a blue collar guy would be as likely to get it as a renowned literature professor! (stereotype just to make the point, I’m the blue collar guy so over to the academics)

The Devils of D-day, by Graham Masterson?

I’m guessing Angela’s Ashes.

darn, it was the devils of D-Day. I should’ve just googled the phrase about the mule first–it comes up right away.

Well I never!! I didn’t think anyone would ever get that! It is, indeed, the Devils of D Day by the master of pulp horror himself. Spam, true to my word whisper me your mailing address and it will be on route in a couple of days. A cute one for the collection.

Captain Brand of the “Centipede”, by Henry Augustus Wise Without heeding the interruption, the captain’s eye rested on the brilliant snuff-box on the table beside him, where the letter L was set in diamonds and blue enamel on the back, and catching it with a rap, his face lighted up, and as he took a pinch and passed the box to the padre, he exclaimed, “Ah! now I remember, my old friend––the Portuguese countess from Oporto. Dios! de mi alma! (God of my soul!) what a stately beauty was her daughter!” Here Captain Brand sneezed, and, drawing a delicately-perfumed lace handkerchief from his waistcoat pocket, blew his nose. Meanwhile the box went round the table; Padre Ricardo took a huge pinch with his dirty fingers, and feasted his eyes upon the precious lid. The doctor scarcely gave the elegant bawble a glance as he helped himself. The Don, however, examined it with the eye of a connoisseur, and not only that, but he threw a spark at the captain’s flashy waistcoat, and thought he detected some other article in the capacious pockets vice the handkerchief. Perhaps he may have been mistaken and perhaps not, though he was so very suspicious an old villain that he sometimes did his friends injustice. Nor did he put his thin brown fingers, with the few grains of snuff he had dipped from the box, to his sheepskin nostrils till he had watched the effect it had produced on those around him. [It’s a free book, and it’s pretty good. There is a lot of snuff taking moments in it, and plenty of arbitrary mentions of snuff as well.]

Can I get a less valuable prize for starting the thread? Perhaps a triple box whatever they’re called? ha ha

Congratulations Spam! Well met.

Well done, Spam!

The childrens’ book “The Roly-Poly Pudding” by Beatrix Potter featureas a ‘normous big rat named Samuel Whiskers who sits in the coror ant takes snuff. Being childrens’ literature, there are of course pictures:

Looks remarkably like me.

Haha, thanks for the congratulations. I feel slightly ashamed to say that google played more than its fair share in finding out what the book was. Alas, I have no quotes to contribute.

ha, we all googled it but could not find it. What did you actually type? The entire quote yeilded no result, nor did Father Anton…

Spam, your google-fu is strong! I couldn’t find anything. What phrases did you use?

Surprisingly it was the only result for “No thanks, but I wouldn’t mind a cigarette”.

You’re too clever for our own good!

Thanks Spam! I googled it and found the whole book. Nice way to spend the afternoon.

Well, to be honest I didn’t think it would come up, but he did well. Itis quite a good book in the pulp horror vein by the way. Demons, a beautiful french woman and snuff - what’s there not to like??

Snuff is mentioned by Balzac, in his novella, The Sceaux Ball.

I wouldn’t know if it’s exactly “Literature” (although he’s been occasionally accused of it), but the latest Terry Prattchett novel “I Shall Wear Midnight” features a witch taking snuff:

‘You’re feeling sorry for yourself and not listening,’ said Mrs Proust. ‘She will find you. You’ll know it when she does. Oh my word, yes.’ She reached into a pocket and produced a small round tin, the lid of which she flicked open with a black fingernail. The air suddenly felt prickly. ‘Snuff ?’ she said, offering the tin to Tiffany. ‘Dirty habit, of course, but it clears the tubes and helps me think.’ She took a pinch of the brown powder, tipped it onto the back of the other hand and sniffed it up with a sound like a honk in reverse. She coughed and blinked once or twice and said, ‘Of course, brown bogeys are not to everybody’s liking, but I suppose they add to that nasty witch look. Anyway, I expect they’ll soon give us dinner.’

It’s a great novel all around, as usual with Pratchett, but I just couldn’t believe this mention of snuff - as far as I remember, it’s the first time he mentions it in 40 books or so =)

Dostoevsky ‘House of the Dead’ …His listener was sitting sullen and quite unconcerned in his bed, ocassionally growling in answer or in token of sympathy with the speaker, more as it seemed out of politeness than from real feeling, and at every moment stuffing his nose with snuff…

Fantasic referenece, pgcd!

And it keeps getting better (and Mrs Proust keeps on snuffing =))!

How about this excerpt from an old US History Course that I took in University. Pretty general information, but interesting nonetheless: “The somewhat cumbersome paraphernalia of smoking caused many tobacco users to shift to snuff, which became common in the eighteenth century. Snuff use eliminated smoke, fire, and spitting with the more refined arts of taking a pinch of powdered, flavored tobacco from a snuffbox and sniffing it into one or both nostrils, which produced a fashionable sneeze followed by a genteel wipe with a dainty handkerchief. Sneezing induced by snuff was considered not only fashionable but healthful. One snuff taker explained that ‘by it’s gently pricking and stimulating the membranes, [snuff] causes Sneezing or Contractions, whereby the Glands like so many squeezed Sponges, dismiss their Seriosities and Filth’”. Anyone else find the language the “snuff taker” used in the last sentence or so to be absolutely fascinating? What a picture he conjured up there!

The term “snuff taker” doesn’t really strike me as strange because to “take” sugar in tea or “take” salt on chips are quite common phrases where live. I find the idea of a “fashionable sneeze” quite funny though.

As a member of the International Snuff Takers Association, the term seems quite normal to me, and not archaic. We’re all snuff takers here.

Thanks for adding to the literature thread, all very interesting quotes! This made me thinking about why in litereature sneezing is (almost always) inevitable and often quite spectacular after partaking? How often you incorrigible snuffers actually sneeze?

Xander: _“We’re all snuff takers here.”_Some may be snuff givers also.

Intersting. I would typically use the term “Snuff user” instead of “Snuff taker” but to each his own I guess. As for myself and sneezing its becoming rarer and rarer. In fact, I usually only sneeze when I do an inordinately large amount.

The use of the word “take” as in Snuff, Tea, etc. is more prominent in UK English. I noticed that one otherwise odd question about preference exists in New Mexico. Go into a restaurant and you’re liable to be asked “red or green” the same way a waitress at cafe in England will ask “black or white”.

There is a judge in the “Rumpole of the Bailey” series that is a snuff taker. I forget which one.

@ Mr_Snuffypants I take mine green! Gotta love that green chile sauce! @ Snuffhouse.org I rarely sneeze when partaking in my snuff habits.

It’s easy to snuff for a good sneeze. That is just not on the agenda for the most part, but in the company of onlookers and curious takers the sneeze becomes quite an event that always brings smiles to the faces of the crowd. Celebrating the sneeze is celebrating snuff so it would never be discouraged but considered downright fashionable. Besides some of these birds are so cute when they sneeze.

@thatjerk I always take the third option. Xmas, which will get you both. Not necessarily a literary reference, but does anyone remember a Benny Hill sketch where he loses a Snuffbox and goes bonkers looking for it. Something about his character being a spy with an important document hidden inside.

a John Keats poem… Give me women, wine, and snuff Untill I cry out “hold, enough!” You may do so sans objection Till the day of resurrection: For, bless my beard, they aye shall be My beloved Trinity.

“Uncle Bernac” by Conan Doyle mentions Napoleon taking huge pinches of snuff several times and also makes several references about “snuff coloured” clothes and skin

Rudyard Kipling’s Kim and Robert Louis Stevenson’s Kidnapped reference snuff taking frequently. For example from Kidnapped: “Mr. Henderland must be well liked in the countryside, for I observed many of them to bring out their mulls and share a pinch of snuff with him.” “Ye don’t carry such a thing as snuff, do ye, Mr. Balfour? No. Well, I’m better wanting it…but it seems strange ye shouldnae carry it.” “He burst rudely past me, dashed into the room, caught up a jar and small horn spoon, and began ladling snuff into his nose in most excessive quantities. Then he had a hearty fit of sneezing, and looked round upon me with a rather silly smile.”

Was just reading Ubik by Philip K. Dick, and right at the end of the first chapter, I came across this:

“Miss Beason,” he instructed his secretary, “have Mrs. Ella Runciter located and bring me the ident number. She’s to be taken to office 2-A.” He seated himself across from her, busied himself with a pinch or two of Fribourg & Treyer Princes snuff as Miss Beason began the relatively simple job of tracking down Glen Runciter’s wife.

Not seeing the text, hmm.  Let me try. Just grabbed my copy of Ubik off the bookshelf to find out what the passage is!  I’m a huge PKD fan.  Great find, @cpmcdill !  I recall that PKD himself was a snuff taker.

Quote:
“He seated himself across from her, busied himself with a pinch or two of Fribourg Treyer Princes snuff as Miss Beason began the relatively simple job of tracking down Glen Runciter’s wife.”

@SHbickel - as I had copied and pasted the text into the post, it turned out there were “special characters” of the sort this site doesn’t recognize, in this instance open and close quotation marks instead of the better tolerated generic quotation marks. It took me several minutes to fix the problem so for a while there the passage was not visible.

Also pkd, in the beginning of.electric.sheep deckard takes a pinch of "no.2 and no. 4 " snuff.

Kidnapped by Robert Louis Stevenson has a snuff feinding traveller. Never carries it with him, but persistently seeks it off others.

Thought I might resurrect this thread with a quote from one of my favourite reads:

“Beyond the obvious facts that he has at some time done manual labour, that he takes snuff, that he is a Freemason, that he has been in China, and that he has done a considerable amount of writing lately, I can deduce nothing else.”

It is a pretty easy guess as to where it is from. 

What about any other ones out there.

In  Treasure Island ,   Dr. Livesey keeps Parmesan cheese in his snuff box and gives it to Jim Hawkins to hand it on to poor old Ben Gunn. Ben had a craving for cheese after being marooned on a desert island for some years.

Snuff is mentioned time and again in the stories of Charles Dickens.  My own little avatar is of Mr. and Mrs. Sowerberry the undertakers in Oliver Twist.  He is shown here with his coffin shaped snuff box.

I am reading Martin Chuzzlewit at the moment and Mrs. Gamp, the nurse,  is associated with snuff a few times.

"  She wore a very rusty black gown, rather the worse for snuff, and a shawl and bonnet to correspond."

also whilst looking after a delirious patient…

Mrs. Gamp solaced herself with a pinch of snuff, and stood looking at him with her head inclined a little sideways, as a connoisseur might gaze upon a doubtful work of art.   By degrees, a horrible remembrance of one branch of her calling took possession of the woman; and stooping down, she pinned his wandering arms against his sides, to see how he would look if laid out as a dead man.  Hideous as it may appear, her fingers itched to compose his limbs in that last marble attitude.

“Ah!”  said Mrs. Gamp, walking away from the bed, “he’d make a lovely corpse.”

@Snuffick     …He also had what Watson called a “blazing red head.”

@Artchoo Well done, Conan-Doyle it is. IIRC Dickens himself was a substantial snuff user. I re-read another of his novels A Tale of Two Cities and found this: “The Marquis took a gentle little pinch of snuff, and shook his head; as elegantly despondent as he could becomingly be of a country still containing himself, that great means of regeneration.”

Lots of mention of snuff in jewish literature, I have posted in the past, but afraid it might get flagged as religious.

Give me women, wine and snuff

Until I cry out , “hold enough!”

You may do so sans objection

Till the day of resurrection:

For bless my beard they aye shall be

My beloved Trinity.

John Keats  

(1795-1821)

@yisraeldov I think that should be fine.

@yisraeldov         I pondered for quite a while before typing the poem by Keats.  For similar reasons.

                             A serious bible thumper could possibly get upset by the use of the Christian Resurrection and the Trinity in this Keats poem.  

As long as any religious aspects are not violently in your face, I personally have no problems.

Everyone else,   please, please,      do not hijack this topic into a debate on acting in a Politically Correct way.

Let us keep to the literature.

Thank you. 

So long as it has snuff in it and it is written in literature it is safe to post in this thread be it religious or not, many nonreligious members will still find it interesting.  

I agree with above comments re: religious texts. Sharing passages from literature that happens to have a connection to specific religions, but is relevant to our common interests, is not the same thing as using the forum as a soap box to proselytize. So it should be perfectly okay. Some religious works make great reading. How many non-Hindus enjoy the Bhagavad Gita? A classic is a classic.

lost souls gogol mentions snuff with violet leafs in it

Apologies to @SleepWalker  

I have just noticed that my Keats poem  on May 18th was actually entered here in December  2010.

X(

yeah mentioning religion or referencing it is way different then proselytizing as cpmcdill mentions. In fact talking about religion seems fine as long as no one is pushing it or using it to be mean to another member. There have been some discussion about religion and spiritual concepts here. I feel like the rule is written the way it is so that if a problem arises it can’t be argued against. Example if they say no proselytizing and we’re talking about the subject and I get pushy I can say I wasn’t proselytizing, however if the topic is forbidden then that’s a different story. I think someone has to complain. So feel free to bring up snuff related religious facts or even personal details. Just be respectful to the fact this is a global forum and there are a lot of spiritual believes held by members here. 

@bob, don’t want to go too far off topic here, but first of all I never would  proselytize, as it is against my religion . That being said the TOS of the forum does prohibit any religious discussion.  Also about a month ago I posted a question regarding snuff and my religion and it was flagged as religious and in the end one of the moderators closed the thread because of inappropriate comments that were made.

that’s sad. I am gonna break the rules and say in my opinion God is beyond human understanding and however you interpret that isn’t a problem as long as you don’t harm others. I hope no one said anything horrible.

Alexander Pope The Rape of the Lock from Canto 5 See, fierce Belinda on the baron flies, With more than usual lightning in her eyes, Nor fear’d the chief th’ unequal fight to try, Who sought no more than on his foe to die. But this bold lord with manly strength endu’d, She with one finger and a thumb subdu’d: Just where the breath of life his nostrils drew, A charge of snuff the wily virgin threw; The Gnomes direct, to ev’ry atom just, The pungent grains of titillating dust. Sudden, with starting tears each eye o’erflows, And the high dome re-echoes to his nose.