SOURCE: “Introduction: This/That/the Other,” in The Infection of Thomas De Quincey: A Psychopathology of Imperialism, Yale University Press, 1991, pp. 1-24.

In the following essay, Barrell reads De Quincey's essays and autobiographical sketches as manifestations of an imperialist anxiety about the “Orient.”

A ‘compromised’ person is one who has been in contact with people or things supposed to be capable of conveying infection. As a general rule the whole Ottoman empire lies constantly under this terrible ban.

A. W. Kinglake, Eothen, 14n.

He described the present state of Syria as perfectly impracticable for travellers, or at least highly dangerous, from the united obstacles of marauders and pestilence. He saw a party of deserters marched in near Damascus, chained to each other, and occasionally a man free from plague joined hand in hand with one who was infected.

The Hon. Mrs Damer, Diary of a Tour, 1: 22.

I

Thomas...