Confessions of an English Opium-Eater

Confessions of an English Opium-Eater

Thomas de Quincey

Confessions of an English Opium-Eater is an autobiographical account by Thomas de Quincey of his addiction to opium and its effect on his life. It was first published in 1821 by London Magazine in two monthly editions and brought fame and notoriety to de Quincey virtually overnight as much for its style as its subject matter. It was released in book form the following year and substantially revised years later for an 1856 edition. The book is organized in two parts, with Part I, Preliminary Confessions, recounting his childhood and youth and the factors the led to his use of laudanum, a mixture of opium and alcohol. Part II is further divided in to three parts: The Pleasures of Opium, which narrates his early and largely favorable experience; Introduction to the Pains of Opium, a second chapter of autobiography covering youth to maturity; and The Pains of Opium, which recounts the extremes of his usage and debilitating physical consequences such as insomnia, nightmares, visions, and physical irregularities. De Quincey was criticized for dwelling overmuch on the pleasures and not enough on the pains, but, in fact, his narrative on the pains of the drug is substantially longer. He employed a style he called “impassioned prose” that attempted to convey the intensity, expansiveness, and the comforting properties of the experience. Confessions is often cited as the first “addiction memoir” and dominated views on the effects of the drug for several generations before the advent of more systematic studies.

Play sample: 

Product Details

Read by: Martin Geeson
Length: 5 hours and 21 minutes
Type: Solo reading
Media: MP3 CD
Package: Paper sleeve
Item No.: CD-1139
List Price: $3.99
Artwork: Disc contains 300 dpi image files for printing
CD label art: Includes both square JPG and round PNG formats
CD jewel case art: Includes cover, inner insert, and J-card
DVD case art: Includes wrapper for Amaray box and inner insert

Credits

Production

Book Coordinator: Martin Geeson
Meta Coordinators: Ruth Golding
Proof Listener: TriciaG

Artwork
Cover: A New Vice: Opium Dens in France, cover of Le Petit Journal, 5 July 1903.
Inset: Front cover of the second edition of Thomas De Quincey's book "Confessions of an English Opium-Eater" (London, 1823).
Inset: Portrait of Thomas DeQuincey, 1877, from"Essays in ancient history and antiquities".
Insert background: Opium den, East end, 1872. from Wellcome Images, a website operated by Wellcome Trust, a global charitable foundation based in the United Kingdom.

The Recordings

About MP3 Audio

This MP3 digital audiobook is duplicated on compact disc in the MP3 audio format and is designed to play on any computer. It will play on CD and DVD players that are designed with MP3 capability. The files contained in an MP3 CD can be imported and played on mobile devices such as the iPod, iPhone, iPad, Android tablets and smart phones and on PSP (Play Station Portable) and PDA (Personal Digital Assistant) devices. Your CD/DVD player or mobile device owner’s manual should specify whether the device has MP3 compatibility. If the device is not directly compatible with the MP3 Audio format, the files on the MP3 CD can be copied onto a computer drive and then played on the computer media player or transferred to a mobile device.

The Recordings

These recordings were made using the author’s original published work, which is in the public domain. The readings were recorded by members of Librivox.org, which has generously made the recordings available to the public domain. While Librivox condones the sale and distribution of these recordings, it is not associated with the management or operations of MP3 Audiobook Classics. The audio files have been lightly edited and have been engineered using professional audio tools for maximum sonic quality. We spend considerable time and effort to ensure the recordings are free of noise, equalized for maximum listener pleasure, and that tracks are leveled and normalized to provide a consistent listening experience.

Table of Contents

Track Section Length
01 01 - To the Reader 12:44
02 02 - 'These preliminary confessions...' 20:45
03 03 - 'So blended and intertwisted...' 21:01
04 04 - 'Soon after this I contrived...' 27:14
05 05 - 'Soon after the period of the last...' 22:31
06 06 - 'I dally with my subject...' 16:02
07 07 - 'So then Oxford Street...' 19:40
08 08 - 'And therefore worthy doctors...' 15:27
09 09 - 'The late Duke of --- used to...' 20:31
10 10 - 'Courteous and I hope indulgent...' 17:59
11 11 - 'If any man poor or rich...' 26:33
12 12 - 'As when some great painter...' 17:27
13 13 - 'I have thus described and illustrated...' 15:45
14 14 - 'Many years ago when I was...' 17:34
15 15 - June 1819 20:25
16 16 - Appendix: December 1822 28:57

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