Confessions of an English Opium-Eater

By De Quincey, Thomas

Book Id: WPLBN0002950567
Format Type:
File Size: 154.46 MB
Reproduction Date: 2009

Title:	Confessions of an English Opium-Eater
Author:	De Quincey, Thomas
Volume:
Language:	English
Subject:	Non-fiction, Memoirs
Collections:	Audio Books Collection, Confessions of an English Opium-Eater
Historic Publication Date:	1822
Publisher:	LibriVox Audio Books


Citation APA MLA Chicago De Quincey, B. T. (1822). Confessions of an English Opium-Eater. Retrieved from http://gutenberg.cc/

Description
“Thou hast the keys of Paradise, O just, subtle, and mighty Opium!” Though apparently presenting the reader with a collage of poignant memories, temporal digressions and random anecdotes, the Confessions is a work of immense sophistication and certainly one of the most impressive and influential of all autobiographies. The work is of great appeal to the contemporary reader, displaying a nervous (postmodern?) self-awareness, a spiralling obsession with the enigmas of its own composition and significance. De Quincey may be said to scrutinise his life, somewhat feverishly, in an effort to fix his own identity. The title seems to promise a graphic exposure of horrors; these passages do not make up a large part of the whole. The circumstances of its hasty composition sets up the work as a lucrative piece of sensational journalism, albeit published in a more intellectually respectable organ – the London Magazine – than are today’s tawdry exercises in tabloid self-exposure. What makes the book technically remarkable is its use of a majestic neoclassical style applied to a very romantic species of confessional writing - self-reflexive but always reaching out to the Reader. (Summary by Martin Geeson)

Summary
Electronic recorded live performance of a reading

Excerpt
Memoirs