De Quincey, Thomas, 1785-1859

Determined to counter the lies about opium that had been told by travellers to the Orient and the medical profession, De Quincey describes his addiction, the consciousness altering properties of the drugs, its pleasures and its pains.

Thomas De Quincey - opium-eater, celebrity journalist, and professional doppelganger - is embedded in our culture. Modelling his character on Coleridge and his sensibility on Wordsworth, De Quincey took over the poet's former cottage in Grasmere and turned it into an opium den. Here, increasingly...