I first read this work when I was eighteen. It made a memorable impression on me then, because De Quincey was 19 when he began his life long addiction to opium, that was the inspiration to his philosophical and literary works. I am not advocating the use of opium, nor am I advocating the use of any narcotic, but it is facinating to note that without his use of opium this great work would never have been written, and so many great works of the 1800s were produced under the influence of opium by De Quincey’s friends and contemporaries Coleridge and Wordsworth. In his confessions he states how easily opium was to obtain, and how vast numbers of English people used it regularly, which may explain the great popularity of De Quincey during his lifetime. Millions of people world wide still use opiates and De Quincey’s words to them are as relevant today as they were to his readers when he first published this work in the London Magazine in 1821.
L.A. Steel
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