Confessions of an English Opium Eater
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...
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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.
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Format: paperback
ISBN:
9780140439014 (0140439013)
ASIN: 140439013
Publish date: April 29th 2003
Publisher: Penguin Classics
Pages no: 240
Edition language: English
Category:
Classics,
Non Fiction,
Autobiography,
Memoir,
Biography,
History,
Literature,
European Literature,
British Literature,
19th Century,
Biography Memoir
De Quincey's Confessions of an English Opium Eater is a strange little book which is quite unlike anything I have ever read. It's one of those unique pieces like Pale Fire or Herodotus's Histories where it does not fit neatly into any genre. In a way, it is a drug memoir, but it has large essay li...
A masterpiece of autobiography, and perhaps the first literary memoir of an addict, the Penguin Classics edition of Thomas De Quincey's Confessions of an English Opium-Eater is edited with an introduction by Barry Milligan. Confessions is a remarkable account of the pleasures and pains of worshippin...
AcknowledgementsChronologyIntroductionFurther ReadingA Note on the Texts--Confessions Of An English Opium-Eater--'Suspiria De Profundis'--'The English Mail-Coach'Appendix: Opium in the Nineteenth CenturyGlossaryNotes
AcknowledgementsChronologyIntroductionFurther ReadingA Note on the Texts--Confessions Of An English Opium-Eater--'Suspiria De Profundis'--'The English Mail-Coach'Appendix: Opium in the Nineteenth CenturyGlossaryNotes
Thomas de Quincey just rambles on and on and on and on....He takes two unparagraphed pages to described why he isn't giving much background because it would be long and boring. Why would you rewrite such rambling trash for a second edition, to make it even more long winded?
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