taghwa.blogg.se - Confessions of an English Opium Eater by Thomas de Quincey

However, even when trying to convey darker truths, De Quincey's language can seem seduced by the compelling nature of the opium experience: Though De Quincey was later criticised for giving too much attention to the pleasure of opium and not enough to the harsh negatives of addiction, The Pains of Opium is-in fact-significantly longer than The Pleasures. This version was published by the Mershon Company in 1898. The cover of Thomas De Quincey's book Confessions of an Opium-Eater. Another "Notice to the Reader" attempts to clarify the chronology of the whole.The Pains of Opium, which recounts the extreme of the author's opium experience (up to that time), with insomnia, nightmares, frightening visions, and difficult physical symptoms.Introduction to the Pains of Opium, which delivers a second installment of autobiography, taking De Quincey from youth to maturity and.The Pleasures of Opium, which discusses the early and largely positive phase of the author's experience with the drug, from 1804 until 1812.

A relatively brief introduction and connecting passage, followed by.

Part II is split into several sections:.

Preliminary Confessions, devoted to the author's childhood and youth, and concentrated upon the emotional and psychological factors that underlay the later opium experiences-especially the period in his late teens that De Quincey spent as a homeless runaway in Oxford Street in London in 18.

Part I begins with a notice "To the Reader", in order to establish the narrative frame: "I here present you, courteous reader, with the record of a remarkable period in my life." It is followed by the substance of Part I,.

įirst published anonymously in September and October 1821 in the London Magazine, the Confessions was released in book form in 1822, and again in 1856, in an edition revised by De Quincey.Īs originally published, De Quincey's account was organised into two parts: The Confessions was "the first major work De Quincey published and the one that won him fame almost overnight".

Front cover of the second edition of the Confessions of an English Opium-Eater (London, 1823)Ĭonfessions of an English Opium-Eater ( 1821) is an autobiographical account written by Thomas De Quincey, about his laudanum addiction and its effect on his life.