Confessions of an English Opium-Eater - Hardcover

De Quincy, Thomas

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1443733679 ISBN 13: 9781443733670

Publisher: Pomona Press, 2008

Synopsis

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.

About this title

From the Back Cover:

Confessions of an English Opium-Eater remains its author’s most famous and frequently-read work and one of the period’s central statements about both the power and terror of imagination. De Quincey describes the intense “pleasures” and harrowing “pains” of his opium use in lyrical and dramatic prose. A notorious success since its 1821 publication, the work has been an important influence on philosophers, theorists, and psychologists, as well as literary writers, of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. But Confessions is only one part of a larger confessional project conceived by De Quincey over the course of his writing career. Gathered together in this edition, these texts provide a fascinating glimpse of early nineteenth-century British aesthetic, medical, psychological, political, philosophical, social, racial, national, and imperialist attitudes.

This edition includes the 1821 text of Confessions, its important sequel Suspiria de Profundis (1845), and its sequel, The English Mail-Coach (1849), as well as extensive appendices.

About the Author:

Joel Faflak is Associate Professor of English at the University of Western Ontario.

About this edition

• Publisher: Pomona Press
• Publication date: 2008
• ISBN 10: 1443733679
• ISBN 13: 9781443733670
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 434