Thomas Penson De Quincey (/ˈtɒməsdəˈkwɪnsi/; 15 August 1785 – 8 December 1859) was an English essayist, best known for his Confessions of an English Opium-Eater (1821). Many scholars suggest that in publishing this work De Quincey inaugurated the tradition of addiction literature in the West.
Life and work
Child and student
De Quincey was born at 86 Cross Street, Manchester, Lancashire, England, Great Britain. His father was a successful merchant with an interest in literature who died when he was quite young. Soon after his birth the family went to The Farm and then later to Greenheys, a larger country house in Chorlton-on-Medlock near Manchester. In 1796, three years after the death of his father, Thomas Quincey, his mother – the erstwhile Elizabeth Penson – took the name "De Quincey." In the same year, De Quincey's mother moved to Bath, Somerset, and enrolled him at King Edward's School.
De Quincey was a weak and sickly child. His youth was spent in solitude, and when his elder brother, William, came home, he wreaked havoc in the quiet surroundings. De Quincey's mother (who counted Hannah More amongst her friends) was a woman of strong character and intelligence, but seems to have inspired more awe than affection in her children. She brought them up very strictly, taking De Quincey out of school after three years because she was afraid he would become big-headed, and sending him to an inferior school at Wingfield in Wiltshire. It is purported that at this time, in 1799, De Quincey first read Lyrical Ballads by Wordsworth and Coleridge.
"Solitude, though it may be silent as light, is like light, the mightiest of agencies; for solitude is essential to man. All men come into this world alone and leave it alone."
"Whereas wine disorders the mental faculties, opium introduces amongst them the most exquisite order, legislation and harmony. Wine robs a man of self-possession; opium greatly invigorates it."
"Tea, though ridiculed by those who are naturally coarse in their nervous sensibilities will always be the favorite beverage of the intellectual."
"If once a man indulges himself in murder, very soon he comes to think little of robbing; and from robbing he next comes to drinking and Sabbath-breaking, and from that to incivility and procrastination"
"Everlasting farewells! and again, and yet again reverberated - everlasting farewells!"
"It was a Sunday afternoon, wet and cheerless; and a duller spectacle this earth of ours has not to show than a rainy Sunday in London."
"Cows are amongst the gentlest of breathing creatures; none show more passionate tenderness to their young when deprived of them; and, in short, I am not ashamed to profess a deep love for these quiet creatures."
"Allow me to offer my congratulations on the truly admirable skill you have shown in keeping clear of the mark. Not to have hit once in so many trials, argues the most splendid talents for missing."
"Flowers that are so pathetic in their beauty, frail as the clouds, and in their coloring as gorgeous as the heavens, had through thousands of years been the heritage of children -- honored as the jewelry of God only by them -- when suddenly the voice of Christianity, counter-signing the voice of infancy, raised them to a grandeur transcending the Hebrew throne, although founded by God himself, and pronounced Solomon in all his glory not to be arrayed like one of these."
"Paint me an eternal tea-pot, for I usually drink tea from eight o'clock at night to four o'clock in the morning."
Photo... Here’s what a blurb is ... That story “Sleepytown” was about her maternal great-grandfather, a Thomas De Quincey–reading Victorian southern gentleman who dosed her daily with codeine cough syrup so that she spent her childhood in an opium haze ... ....
Editor’s Note... I am less genteel ... myself ... I ran out years ago ... Write it up! For an idea of how to proceed, read Thomas De Quincey’s Confessions of an Opium Eater . De Quincey was very good on the teemingness and fathomlessness of the drifting mind.
In postwar Warsaw, my grandmother Zosia fixed the teeth of prisoners and spies ...Thomas De Quincey wrote that if toothaches could kill they would be considered “the most dreadful among human maladies” ... ....
Thomas de Quincey visited Ilfracombe’s hot baths in 1812 to “restore his shattered strength” after the death of Wordworth’s daughter ...Let’s recreate the Thomas de Quincey experience of enjoying hot baths before cold plunges into the sea ... 4.
Image. Bad Viking/Iceberg Interactive ...Folks, we’re heading back to Undermere ... Of course, you must pet the shop’s cat ... “I recently came across this quote from Thomas De Quincey, which delightfully sums up what we’re aiming for.
‘I felt mellow, but not dozy – alert, clear-headed, my thoughts no longer running into and climbing on top of one another.’ The effect recalls Thomas De Quincey’s discovery of opium.
. fight for your life ... READ MORE ... The 19th-century writer Thomas De Quincey described them as 'amongst the gentlest of breathing creatures' ... The 19th-century writer Thomas De Quincey described them as 'amongst the gentlest of breathing creatures' ... .
Thomas De Quincey, author of Lessons From an EnglishOpiumEater... But what I found particularly interesting was an analysis of the writings of Thomas De Quincey from more than 200 years ago ... Thomas De ...
... without.” — Thomas De Quincey ... “Tea, though ridiculed by those who are naturally coarse in their nervous sensibilities, will always be the favourite beverage of the intellectual.” — Thomas De Quincey.
Once you start to notice it, the whiff of opium is everywhere ... If you have ever suffered from diarrhoea or headache, chances are you have popped an opioid — Imodium, Nurofen ... BOOKS ... A Life of Thomas De Quincey by Frances Wilson ... .
Yet Coleridge was a serial plagiarist, as Thomas De Quincey revealed in a hit job published after Coleridge's death. As Mallon notes, De Quincey was, appropriately enough, eventually exposed as an even ...
