The Opium Eater A Life Of Thomas De Quincey

The definitive biography of the extraordinary, brilliant and complex author of Confessions of an English Opium-Eater, Thomas de Quincy.

A book about opium usage and the effects of addiction on the authors life.

Definitive life of the author of CONFESSIONS OF AN ENGLISH OPIUM-EATER, journalist, political commentator and biographer. Thomas De Quincey's friendships with leading poets and men of letters in the Romantic and Victorian periods - including William Wordsworth, Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Thomas Carlyle - have long placed him at the centre of 19th-century literary studies. De Quincey also stands at the meeting point in the culture wars between Edinburgh and London; between high art and popular taste; and between the devotees of the Romantic imagination and those of hack journalism. His writing was a tremendous influence on Edgar Allan Poe, Charles Dickens, William Burroughs and Peter Ackroyd. De Quincey is a fascinating (and topical) figure for other reasons too: a self-mythologizing autobiographer whose attitudes to drug-induced creativity and addiction strike highly resonant chords for a contemporary readership. Robert Morrison's biography passionately argues for the critical importance and enduring value of this neglected essayist, critic and biographer.

This vintage book contains Thomas De Quincey's 1821 autobiographic account, "Confessions of an English Opium-Eater". Within this volume, De Quincey describes his addiction to opium and explains, in great detail, the effects that it had on him and his life. It was his first major work, and one that brought him fame almost overnight. Thomas Penson De Quincey (1785 - 1859) was a seminal English essayist. Many antiquarian books like this are increasingly rare and expensive, and it is with this in mind that we are republishing this book now in an affordable, modern, and high-quality edition. It comes complete with a specially commissioned new biography of the author.

Confessions of an English Opium-Eater is an autobiographical account written by Thomas De Quincey, about his laudanum addiction and its effect on his life. It was criticized for presenting a too positive and too enticing picture of the opium experience to readers. And apparently, several English writers: Francis Thompson, James Thomson, William Blair, and perhaps Branwell Brontë -- were led to opium use and addiction by De Quincey's account.

From bestselling thriller author David Morrell comes a brooding Thomas De Quincey short story about the coldest of deaths and their heartbreaking aftermath. Thomas De Quincey -- the central character of Morrell's acclaimed Victorian mysteries, Murder as a Fine Art and Inspector of the Dead -- was one of the most notorious and brilliant literary personalities of the 1800s. His infamous Confessions of an English Opium-Eater made history as the first book about drug dependency. He invented the word "subconscious" and anticipated Freud's psychoanalytic theories by more than a half century. His blood-soaked essays and stories influenced Edgar Allan Poe, who in turn inspired Sir Arthur Conan Doyle to create Sherlock Holmes. But at the core of his literary success lies a terrible tragedy. In this special-edition novella, based on real-life events, Morrell shares De Quincey's story of a horrific snowstorm in which a mother and father died and their six children were trapped in the mountains of England's Lake District. Even more gripping is what happened after. This is the true tale of how Thomas De Quincey became the Opium-Eater, brought to life by award-winning storyteller David Morrell. An afterword contains numerous photographs of the dramatic locations in the story.

Confessions of an English Opium-Eater is an autobiographical E16account written by Thomas De Quincey, about his laudanum addiction and its effect on his life. The Confessions was "the first major work De Quincey published and the one which won him fame almost overnight.

Confessions of an English Opium-Eater, Suspiria de Profundis, and 'The English Mail-Coach' are De Quincey's finest essays in autobiography, published here with three appendices containing a wealth of related manuscript material and a comprehensive introduction and notes.