Product Description

In this remarkable autobiography, Thomas De Quincey hauntingly describes the surreal visions and hallucinatory nocturnal wanderings he took through London-and the nightmares, despair, and paranoia to which he became prey-under the influence of the then-legal painkiller laudanum. Forging a link between artistic self-expression and addiction, Confessions seamlessly weaves the effects of drugs and the nature of dreams, memory, and imagination. First published in 1821, it paved the way for later generations of literary drug users, from Baudelaire to Burroughs, and anticipated psychoanalysis with its insights into the subconscious.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #255038 in Books
• Published on: 2003-04-29
• Released on: 2003-04-29
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 240 pages

Features

• ISBN13: 9780140439014
• Condition: NEW
• Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
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About the Author
Thomas De Quincey (1785-1859) studied at Oxford and failed to take his degree but discovered opium. He later met Coleridge, Southey, and the Wordworths and worked as a journalist in Edinburgh.

Barry Milligan teaches at Wright State University in Dayton, Ohio.

Customer Reviews

A Great Autobiographical Work of Art
I stumbled on this book while I was a long-haired undergrad in college many years ago, and I selected it (probably because of the intriguing, rebellious-sounding title) to write a term paper on for a class I was taking in biography. I have nursed a special attraction for this work of literary art ever since those days, and currently own it in several different editions, including this one from Penguin Classics.

While his writing is probably tough-going for the typical modern day reader, De Quincey was truly a master stylist of English prose (one of the greatest who ever lived) and the writing here is lushly impeccable -- beautiful and poetic. Contemporary readers, do not be afraid of this kind of book! Sure, it might be difficult to read (it's certainly not "dummied down" like so much modern day stuff), but if you don't try, I think you'll be missing out on a great adventure. After all, consider, Shakespeare and the Bible are difficult to read too!

In any event, these writings of De Quincey's, quite autobiographical, tell of the marvelous stimulus to creativity and pleasure that opium can provide (at least, in the initial phases) to those who become emeshed in her dark empire, as well as the chilling aftermath -- the pathetic fear and trembling that inevitably follow from addiction. At his peak usage, I have read that De Quincey was doing around 8,000 drops a day (approximately 80 teaspoons). As one of the other reviewers here correctly noted, tincture of opium (I think that it actually came as a liquid blend of opium, drinking alcohol, and cinnamon) was sold over-the-counter as medicine in neighborhood apothecary shops (drug stores and pharmacies) in those days.

The "Confessions" date from 1822, while a complementary sequel, "Suspiria de Profundis", dates from 1845. De Qunicey, who relapsed three times after trying to "clean himself up" and "go straight", passed away in December 1859, right about the time that Baudelaire (who also died an opium addict -- in 1867) was completing his own book (it was in direct response to De Quincey's) about the dreamy debacheries of hashish and opium, entitled "Artificial Paradises".

Flawless, beautiful prose, compelling autobiography.
This is English that one can luxuriate in and enjoy for it's precision and beauty. There are few if any English compositions that better convey subjective feeling than this book. You feel as though you are inside the author's mind as he writes so exactly and sympathetically.

As a recounting of a man's struggle with addiction it is a compelling story.

Not visions of sugar plums
It's a classic of course, but not very readable as pure entertainment.Probably the parts about his opium addiction, which are pages 44-88, are of most interest today. To be frank, most of the rest is hard going unless you're adept at reading early nineteenth century English, perhaps an English or history major. De Quincey was a rambling and digressive writer, even by nineteenth century standards. There is some fascination in the interlocking lives of this circle of writers of the romantic movement (the "Lake Poets";Wordsworth, Coleridge and Southey, and their contemporaries Keats, Shelley and Byron) especially if you've read Richard Holmes's wonderful biographies.
You can get the "Confessions of an English Opium Eater" alone cheaper in the Dover edition. This Penguin Classics edition contained other writings which are of limited appeal, but the notes and the introduction and appendix by Barry Mulligan make it more understandable and provide useful historical background about opium use.
Opium was freely available over the counter in England until 1858, so this could be read as a warning about what might happen with legalization. It has always been a puzzle that De Quincey and Coleridge described vivid dreams and hallucinations as part of their experience, whereas opioids used by addicts today are not usually hallucinogenic. De Quincey was aware that his experiences were atypical and offered his own explanations ("one whose talk is of oxen will dream of oxen").
I was intrigued his account of the relief of his withdrawal symptoms by the use of valerian (prescribed by Bell of Bell's palsy).