The Confessions of an English Opium-Eater and Other Writings

Confessions of an English Opium-Eater is an account of the early life and opium addiction of Thomas De Quincey, in prose which is by turns witty, conversational, and nightmarish. ´On the Knocking at the Gate in Macbeth´ offers both a small masterpiece of Shakespearian interpretation and a provocative statement of De Quincey´s personal aesthetic of contrast and counterpoint. Suspiria de Profundis blends autobiography and philosophical speculation into a series of dazzling prose-poems which explore the mysteries of time, memory, and suffering. ´The English Mail-Coach´ develops a richly apocalyptic vision which sets nineteenth-century England´s political and imperial grandeur against the suffering and loss of innocence which it entails...