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Confessions of an English Opium-Eater: Popular Penguins

by Thomas De Quincey

Describing the surreal hallucinations, insomnia and nightmarish visions he experienced while consuming daily large amounts of laudanum, De Quincey's account of the pleasures and pains of opium forged a link between artistic self-expression and addiction, and paved the way for later generations of literary drug-takers from Baudelaire to Burroughs.

FORMAT
Paperback
LANGUAGE
English
CONDITION
Brand New


Publisher Description

Describing the surreal hallucinations, insomnia and nightmarish visions he experienced while consuming daily large amounts of laudanum, Thomas De Quincey's legendary account of the pleasures and pains of opium forged a link between artistic self-expression and addiction, and paved the way for later generations of literary drug-takers from Baudelaire to Burroughs.

Author Biography

Thomas De Quincey was born on 15 August 1789 in Manchester, the son of an affluent cloth merchant. He ran away from the Manchester Grammar school aged 17 and travelled in poverty in Wales and London before being reconciled with his family. He then attended Oxford University, where he first began to take opium. Despite excelling at his studies, De Quincey left university without completing his degree and married Margaret Simpson, the daughter of a local farmer. Having exhausted his inheritance, partly due to his addiction to opium, De Quincey found work as a journalist and wrote prolifically on various subjects for numerous publications. Confessions of a English Opium-Eater was published in the London Magazine in 1821 and found instant success. He went on to write several novels and biographies, and his unusual autobiographical style made his work extremely popular on both sides of the Atlantic. When De Quincey's wife Margaret died in 1837, his opium addiction worsened and he moved away from London to Scotland to relieve his straitened finances. He died in Edinburgh on 8 December 1859.Thomas De Quincey (1785-1859) studied at Oxford and failed to take his degree but discovered opium. He later met Coleridge, Southey, and the Wordsworths and worked as a journalist in Edinburgh.

Details

ISBN0141194944
Language English
ISBN-10 0141194944
ISBN-13 9780141194943
Media Book
Format Paperback
Publication Date 2010-06-28
Year 2010
Publisher Penguin Books Ltd
Series Popular Penguins
Imprint Penguin Books Ltd
Place of Publication London
Country of Publication United Kingdom
Tag TNXMAS007
Pages 296
DEWEY 828/.809 B
UK Release Date 2010-06-28
Author Thomas De Quincey
Audience General
NZ Release Date 2010-06-27
AU Release Date 2010-06-27

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