Confessions of an English Opium-Eater

[Stuck]

Confessions of an English Opium-Eater
by Thomas De Quincey

swim found this a few days ago. an English laudanum(opium tincture) addict documents his life in the late 1700s/early 1800s. very interesting.

"By accident I met a college acquaintance, who recommended opium. Opium! dread agent of unimaginable pleasure and pain! I had heard of it as I had of manna or of ambrosia, but no further. How unmeaning a sound was it at that time: what solemn chords does it now strike upon my heart! what heart-quaking vibrations of sad and happy remembrances! Reverting for a moment to these, I feel a mystic importance attached to the minutest circumstances connected with the place and the time and the man (if man he was) that first laid open to me the Paradise of Opium-eaters."


Full book here:

Confessions of an English Opium-Eater by Thomas De Quincey (http://www.drugs-forum.com/forum/local_links.php?action=ratelink&linkid=3213&catid=13&lpage=1)

[Perception Addict]

This book does a great job of summing up the drug climate, or how the middle class felt about drugs, during the early 1800's. It's also interesting because most of the writers who experimented with hashish or opium throughout the Victorian Era cite this book as their inspiration for trying the substances. Even through the first half of the 1900's, this book is cited as the reason for trying nitrous oxide and other substances known to have mind altering qualities.

You could probably call this one of the first solid trip reports that helps others to understand a drug experience.

[enquirewithin]

This is a classic of drug literature. Many of Romantic poets took opium in the form of laudanum. Samuel Taylor Coleridge was another junkie. Apparently, Kubla Kahn was inspired by an opium dream: In Xanadu did Kubla KhanA stately pleasure-dome decree:
Where Alph, the sacred river, ran
Through caverns measureless to manDown to a sunless sea.

[enquirewithin]

Unlike most people, you have actually read this book! I agree that de Quincey's prose style makes him hard to read. Last time I tried, I gave up during a rambling introduction which I recall was basically about how he handled his opium addition better that Coleridge handled his, which , at the time, seemed like typical junkie complaining about other junkies. His character came across as one I had little admiration for, so I gave up on the book!

Huxley would never have become addicted to opiates (the 'downward transcendence' he despised ). Coleridge was lucky to have been inspired to creativity by opium-- he was dreaming. Opiates rarely do inspire creativity (Bill Burroughs is a another rare case.)

[~lostgurl~]

Thanks to merecat (http://www.drugs-forum.com/forum/member.php?u=33275) I have just found out that as of a few hours ago, this book is 100 years! Published 1908.

[merecat]

Thanks to merecat (http://www.drugs-forum.com/forum/member.php?u=33275) I have just found out that as of a few hours ago, this book is 100 years! Published 1908.

Hi lostgirl- in my post I meant that my copy is officially 100 years old today. My copy was printed 1908. The 'book' was first published in 1821, (first in London Magazine). De Quincey would have been about 36 years old at the time. A second edition of the book was published in 1856, with a new foreword by De Quincey (then 71).

I have read the first 100 pages, and I'm enjoying it immensely. He does tend to ramble though.

[china cat]

I'm very interested in opiates but I have tried to read this several times and just can't get past his prose style.......he rambles on and on and on........he was probably on the nod when he wrote it....nodded off.....wrote and few more words......nodded off.....wrote a bit.....nod....etc etc etc.

It sits on my bookcase and every few years I get it down but have never managed to finish it.

[Dickon]

Honestly I don't really see much of a review here, so step aside, and allow me DR XYZ to attempt this task. First of all some little truth has been spoken about this volume, viz that it was published in 1821 and a second edition was published in 1856. What mercet fails to mention is that the 1856 edition is a much longer version, padded out in what is generally thought to be an inferior style. Thus the 1821 edition is the one that is normally read today. I've never seen a copy of the 1856 edition, but one copy I owned did contain selected passages from the 1856 edition, which were interesting only in part (more dreams, details etc), and these were clearly selected for interest.

When I first read the book I was surprised by how much of what he wrote wasn't about opium, and opium eating. He does write in a scholarly manner (bear in mind that he spoke fluent Greek at a young age, and was a good classical scholar) and uses such terms as pharmakon nepenthes (in Greek), pandiculation, evanescence, and many others that require either a footnote or a google to decrypt. I like this as it is a book that will extend your vocabulary. However despite the erudition, the style is still somewhat clunky. It sparkles in places, but often drags. There's a charming vignette of a cottage scene of opium eating in winter, and some good stories. I like the one about the Malay who comes to call for example.

What he says about opium (and he essentially dismisses any medical opinion except that opium is brown, expensive, and a lot of it kills you) is often contradicted by his own experience. He seems to think one doesn't increase the dose and yet he did. He'll justify this by talking about his real and genuine medical complaints. He claims opium is a stimulant, and criticizes those "Turks who take opium and sit around on logs as stupid as themselves" (this is misquoted from memory), and yet claims his greatest pleasure is sitting alone watching the sea. I'd take a lot of what he says with a pinch of salt, as like so many addicts he has a warped view about his own using of drugs. For example when he says that he'd quit or cut down to a very low dose (I don't have a copy to hand, I'll edit this later if I remember) and stayed their for a period of quite a few months, and got no relief of withdrawal symptoms, I find this very unlikely. This book is of no use as a how-to guide for opium eating, but is a window into a different world. On occasions De Quincey shows genuine perspicacity and wit, but other times he slips into self-indulgent prose. The dream sequences I didn't find that interesting. I usually sag mentally when I know I'm about to be told someone's dreams. I think he must have had an usual mind to begin with, and the dreams he describes (often nightmares that seem unending) are peculiar to him, and are not representative of what a normal person will experience under the influence of opium.

I was drawn to it as a "druggy" book, but have reread it several times because I found it charming and worth wading through.