[Abrufen] (Bocker) Confessions of an English Opium Eater
By Thomas De Quincey
Although he was an acute literary critic, a voluminous contributor to Blackwood's and
other journals, and a perceptive writer on history, biography, and economics, Thomas
de Quincey (1785?1859) is best known for his Confessions of an English Opium
Eater.First published in installments in the London Magazine in 1821, the work
recounts De Quincey's early years as a precocious student of Greek, his flight from
grammar school and subsequent adventures among the outcasts and prostitutes of
London, studies at Oxford University and his introduction to opium in 1804 (he hoped
that taking the drug would relieve a severe headache). It was the beginning of a long-
term addiction to opium, whose effects on his mind are revealed in remarkably vivid
descriptions of the dreams and visions he experienced while under its
influence.Describing the general style of the Confessions, an English critic of the
period wrote in the London Monthly Review: "They have an air of reality and life; and
they exhibit
