Thomas de Quincey Summary

Biography EssayIn her 1926 essay on "Impassioned Prose," Virginia Woolf declared that Thomas De Quincey was "an exception and a solitary." Subsequent readers have often agreed that he defies categoriz... Read more

Best known as the author of the Confessions of an English Opium Eater (1822), Thomas De Quincey was an innovative master of English prose style whose importance has been eclipsed by the modern tendenc... Read more

In the following essay, Devlin examines De Quincey's claims regarding “the hidden capacities of prose” to express passion and “grandeur.” ‘To walk well, it... Read more

In the following essay, Barrell reads De Quincey's essays and autobiographical sketches as manifestations of an imperialist anxiety about the “Orient.” A ‘compromised&#x... Read more

In the following essay, Roberts examines De Quincey's reading of Wordsworth and Coleridge's poetry within the context of De Quincey's literary life and the development of his poli... Read more

Opium is a narcotic drug produced from the drying resin of unripe capsules of the opium poppy, Papaver Somniferum. The major constituent of opium is morphine, and these molecules have pain-killing p... Read more