Confessions of an English Opium Eater

ISBN-13: 9780140439014 / Angielski / Miękka / 2003 / 352 str.

Thomas De Quincey

Opis

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, Confessionsseamlessly 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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Recenzje

Mind-blowingly modern . . . [De Quincey s] poetic depictions of the wild hallucinations that punctuated his years with the drug transfixed his contemporaries. To us, though, his story is revelatory mostly for its eerie familiarity. The New York Times Book Review

De Quincey s rather majestic, classically learned and singular style inspires every page of his writing. . . . The self-controlled equanimity of this classic volume is little short of miraculous. The Guardian

O autorze

Thomas De Quincey (1785-1859) studied at Oxford, failing to take his degree but discovering opium. He later met Coleridge, Southey and the Wordsworths. From 1828 until his death he lived in Edinburgh and made his living from journalism. Barry Milligan is Professor of English at Wright State University and author of Pleasures and Pains (Virginia UP, 1995).