Confessions of an English Opium-Eater аnd Other Writings

A selection of tales by Thomas de Quincey that includes the title story and The English Mail-Coach.

Edited with an introduction and notes by Grevel Lindop.

* Introduction * Textual Note * Bibliography * Chronology * Explanatory Notes *

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"I saw that I must die if I continued the opium: I determined, therefore, if that should be required, to die in throwing it off."

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"Confessions of an English Opium-Eater" is an account of the early life and opium addiction of Tomas De Quincey (1785-1859), in prose which is by turns witty, conversational, and nightmarish. "On the Knocking at the Gate in Macbeth" offers both a small masterpiece of Shakesperian interpretation and a provocative statement of De Quincey's personal aesthetic of contrast and counterpoint. "Suspiria de Profundis "blends autobiography and philosophical speculation into a series of dazzling prose-poems which explore the mysteries of time, memory, and suffering. "The English Mail-Coach" develops a richly apocalyptic vision which sets nineteenth-century England‘s political and imperial grandeur against the suffering and loss of innocence which it entails.

This selection presents De Quincey's major works in their original uncut and unrevised versions, which in some cases have not been available for many years.

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CONTENS

Introduction_ vii

Acknowledgements_ xxii

Note on the Text_ xxiii

Select Bibliography_ xxvii

A Chronology of Thomas De Quincey_ xxxii

Confessions of an English Opium-Eater, 1

On the Knocking at the Gate in Macbeth, 81

Suspiria de Profundis, 87

The English Mail-Coach, 183

Explanatory Notes, 235

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"Исповедь англичанина, употреблявшего опиум" (1821) – самое знаменитое произведение английского писателя Томаса Де Квинси (1785-1859), сразу по выходе в свет получившее всеевропейскую известность.

В настоящее издание вошло также продолжение "Исповеди…" – "Suspiria de profundis"(1845).