The Opium Eater

'Scholarly, eloquent, persuasive and entertaining'

The Economist


'Scholarly and entertaining... brings its extraordinary subject back to
life. All amateurs of the marvellous age in which De Quincey lived will
relish it.'

Michael Ratcliffe The Times


The Opium Eater is the highly readable account of the life of
Thomas De Quincey (1785-1859), a key Romantic author, a cult figure and the
father of literary drug-culture. He was the intimate friend of Wordsworth,
Coleridge and other English Romantic poets. A natural rebel and loner, De
Quincey discovered opium as an Oxford student and became a lifelong addict.



De Quincey's 'Confessions of an English Opium Eater' -
describing the astonishing dreams, sublime and horrific, to which opium
gave rise - became a world-wide sensation, influencing Baudelaire, Poe,
Cocteau and Burroughs amongst others. A leading author of his time, De
Quincey was dogged by scandal and debt. His revelations about the private
lives of the Romantic poets plunged him into controversy, and much of his
work was written whilst dodging creditors on the seedy back streets of
London and Edinburgh.


This newly-revised ebook edition of the classic biography describes a
strange and adventurous life, full of colourful characters in a fascinating
cultural era.