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Author: Thomas De Quincey
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0199600619
Category: Biography & Autobiography
Page: 332
View: 6046
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.Author: Thomas De Quincey
Publisher: Createspace Independent Publishing Platform
ISBN: 9781499580051
Category: Biography & Autobiography
Page: 70
View: 2430
Thomas De Quincy's autobiographical tract Confessions of an English Opium-Eater is an account, you might have guessed, of the author's struggles and glories with opium. Though he was a brilliant and well educated young man, De Quincy - who had left school and was ashamed to ask for help - entered a period of near-homelessness in the dank London streets. This period of destitution resulted in chronic stomach pains, for which he began to take a tincture of opium, or Laudanum, to combat the pain. These Confessions are the result of a decades-long battle with addiction to the drug, divided into two parts: The Pleasures of Opium, and The Pains of Opium. De Quincy's Confessions earned him fame very quickly when it was released 1822. He was exceedingly well-read in the poetry and literature of the 17th and 18th centuries, which his lavish "impassioned prose" reflects. With virtuosity he describes his early years, from youth to maturity, and his early accounts of using the drug, which he did with restraint. The second part, which describes when he was taking enough opium to kill a donkey, details the fantastical and sometimes horrible visions he experienced while on the the substance. "The sense of space, and in the end, the sense of time, were both powerfully affected. Buildings, landscapes, etc. were exhibited in proportions so vast as the bodily eye is not fitted to conceive. Space swelled, and was amplified to an extent of unutterable infinity." His visions took on vast, Oriental themes, often correlated to Coleridge's Opium-induced poem "Kubla Khan." Since no one had studied the effects of drugs in much detail, De Quincey's account was held as the official reference for generations, often generating criticism that he focused too heavily on the "Pleasures." The "Pains" section however, with its visions of horror and grandeur, certainly could be read as a warning against the drug. That said, his work became a sort of instruction manual for experimentation, and may have lead several writers, including Francis Thompson, William Blair, and perhaps Branwell Brontë, to take the drug. Charles Baudelaire's 1860 translation would then spread the influence of the Confessions into the French-speaking realm.Author: Thomas de Quincey
Publisher: N.A
ISBN: N.A
Category:
Page: 94
View: 440
Differentiated book- It has a historical context with research of the time-Confessions of an English Opium-Eater (1821) is an autobiographical account written by Thomas De Quincey about his addiction to laudanum and its effect on his life. The Confessions was "the first great work published by De Quincey and the one that earned him fame almost overnight ..." First published anonymously in September and October 1821 in the London Magazine, the Confessions It was released as a book in 1822, and again in 1856, in an edition reviewed by De Quincey. As originally published, De Quincey's account was organized in two parts: Part I begins with a notice "To the reader", to establish the narrative framework: "Here I present you, polite reader, with the record of a remarkable period in my life ... ", followed by the substance of Part I, Preliminary Confessions, dedicated to the author's childhood and youth, and focused on the emotional and psychological factors that underlie subsequent experiences with opium, especially the period in his teens that De Quincey spent as a homeless fugitive on Oxford Street in London in 1802 and 1803.Part II is divided into several sections: A relatively brief introduction and a connecting passage, followed by The Pleasures of Opium, which analyzes the early and largely positive phase of the author's experience with the drug, from 1804 to 1812; Introduction to the Dolores del Opio, which offers a second installment of autobiography, taking De Quincey from youth to maturity.Author: Thomas De Quincey
Publisher: Wordsworth Editions
ISBN: 9781853260964
Category: Fiction
Page: 210
View: 4074
A work, published in 1821, in which the author describes a number of experiences during his boyhood which he implies laid the foundations for his later life of helpless drug addiction. Full of psychological insight and descriptive writing, it consists of his remarkable account of the pleasures and pains of opium.Author: Thomas De Quincey
Publisher: Penguin UK
ISBN: 9780141043890
Category: Authors, English
Page: 128
View: 6441
In this selection for Penguin's Great Ideas series, De Quincey discusses his opium addiction, tells how it began, and reveals how his life progressed while under the spell of this habit.Author: Thomas De Quincey
Publisher: N.A
ISBN: N.A
Category: Opium abuse
Page: 275
View: 2156
Author: Thomas De Quincey
Publisher: N.A
ISBN: N.A
Category:
Page: N.A
View: 340
Author: Thomas De Quincey
Publisher: The Floating Press
ISBN: 1775414620
Category: Biography & Autobiography
Page: 162
View: 4091
You won't be able to put down this gripping first-hand account of opium addiction that shocked England after its initial publication in 1821. Thomas De Quincy was a renowned author and intellectual who fell prey to a laudanum addiction as a young man, and who later recounted his experiences in excruciating detail in a series of anonymously published magazine serials. This important early work provides a fascinating glimpse into the processes of drug addiction.Author: Thomas De Quincy
Publisher: Read Books Ltd
ISBN: 1446546640
Category: Biography & Autobiography
Page: 434
View: 9992
This vintage book comprises 'Confessions of an English Opium-Eater'; an autobiographical account of Thomas De Quincey's opium addiction and the effect that it had on his life. This text was the first major book that De Quincey published, and one that made him famous in a very short period of time. De Quincey's Confessions assumed an authoritative influence on the public, as well as scientific opinion of opium for several generations. It went through almost innumerable editions and revisions despite the fact that he was generally criticised for putting too much emphasis on the positive aspects of opium intoxication. Thomas Penson De Quincey (1785 – 1859) was an English essayist who was most renowned for writing this book. We are republishing this vintage work now in an affordable, modern edition complete with a new prefatory biography of the author.