Confessions of an English Opium-Eater is a nonfiction book written by Thomas de Quincey. Released in 1822, it details Quincey's addiction to (then-legal) opiates.
Confessions is most notable for influencing several other intellectuals into using opiates and influencing the Sherlock Holmes short story The Man with the Twisted Lip.
Publisher's summary[]
Confessions is a remarkable account of the pleasures and pains of worshipping at the 'Church of Opium'. Thomas De Quincey consumed daily large quantities of laudanum (at the time a legal painkiller), and this autobiography of addiction hauntingly describes his surreal visions and hallucinatory nocturnal wanderings through London, along with the nightmares, despair and paranoia to which he became prey. The result is a work in which the effects of drugs and the nature of dreams, memory and imagination are seamlessly interwoven, describing in intimate detail the mind-altering pleasures and pains unique to opium. Confessions of an English Opium-Eater forged a link between artistic self-expression and addiction, paving the way for later generations of literary addicts from Baudelaire to James Frey, and anticipating psychoanalysis with its insights into the subconscious.
See also[]
| Title | Author | Release date | Signifigance |
|---|---|---|---|
| The Doors of Perception | Aldous Huxley | 1954 | A nonfiction book detailing its author's experiences with mescaline |
| Junky | William S. Burroughs | 1953 | A novel with similar themes |
| The Nether World | George Gissing | 1889 | A novel with similar themes |
| The Man with the Twisted Lip | Arthur Conan Doyle | 1891 | A Sherlock Holmes story inspired by this book |
| Naked Lunch | William S. Burroughs | 1959 | A novel about an opium addict |
Sources[]
- Wikipedia
- Goodreads