Thomas De Quincey

De Quincey entered into wedlock with Margaret Simpson in 1816. The couple was blessed with eight children of which only four survived. Margaret passed away in 1837.

His stint with opium started way back in 1804 when he used it to relieve himself from neuralgia. By 1813, he became a daily user of the drug. Between 1813 and 1819, he engaged in high dose of opium. What started as a health measure went on to become a pleasure-inducer and later an addiction that was hard to beat.

Arguably it is said that the effect of opium on De Quincey’s literary career was extremely high. Periods of low consumption of opium was marked as a literary unproductive phase while during high consumption days his literary output blossomed.

Thomas de Quincey was born on August 15, 1785, in Manchester, England to Thomas Quincey and Elizabeth Penson. His father, a successful merchant by profession, died when he was very young.

Young Quincey initially studied at the King’s Edward School, before being forcefully sent to Wingfield in Wiltshire. Extremely intelligent and brainy, he attended the Manchester Grammar School with an aim to obtain a scholarship at Oxford. It was during this time that he first chanced upon reading the works of Wordsworth and Coleridge, precisely the Lyrical Ballads.

Bored with the routine, he ran away from school and wandered around the Wales region until he was broke. He then left for London. Instead of returning to his family, he lived in starvation. This period of deprivation profoundly influenced his later writings.

Upon returning home, he attended Worcester College, Oxford in 1803. Following year, he first started using opium in the form of laudanum, a liquid tincture. Though he completed his studies, failure to take the oral exam led him to leave the university without a formal degree.

Having finished college, he became a close associate of Coleridge and Wordsworth. By 1809, he settled at Grasmere at Wordsworth’s former home, Dove Cottage.

Quincey’s financial condition worsened by the end of 1810s. He had a huge family to support and his opium addiction had increased by manifolds. Monetary constraints led him to take up literary profession.

In 1818, he took up the post of the editor in a Tory newspaper ‘The Westmorland Gazette’. However, difference of opinion and his inability to meet deadlines led him to resign in 1819.

He actively started contributing his articles in newspapers and magazines, penning on a wide range of topics right from literary criticism to translations of German poetry and drama, to popularizing the theories of British economist David Ricardo.

It was in 1821 that he first found success for his writings with his article published in the London Magazine that gave an account of his experiences as an opium user. His article was so well-received that it took the form of a book in 1822 under the title, ‘Confessions of an English Opium Eater’.

De Quincey’s masterpiece was the 1822 published book, ‘Confessions of an English Opium Eater’. The title aptly describes the content of the book which dealt with Quincey’s addiction of opium and its effect. Partly autobiographical in nature, the book gives a wide overview of the effect of opium, the pleasure and pain, the euphoria and nightmare that the continued use of the drug produced.