Thomas De Quincey (1785 1859) described his adolescent discovery of the Lyrical Ballads of Wordsworth and Coleridge as 'an absolute revelation of untrodden worlds, teeming with power and beauty'. The admiring letter he sent to Wordsworth led to friendships with him, Coleridge and Robert Southey. Relations soured over time, though, as De Quincey's opium addiction and debts increased. Following Coleridge's death in 1834, De Quincey began writing his 'Lake Reminiscences', published serially in Tait's Magazine up to 1840. Candid, occasionally bitter, and highlighting flaws such as Coleridge's plagiarism, the recollections offended the surviving poets and their families, yet these vivid portraits attract continued scholarly interest for both the light shed on the subjects and on the author himself. The collected essays, reissued in this 1863 printing of the 1862 first edition, certainly served to confirm the Lake Poets as leading figures of English Romanticism."

'People begin to see that something more goes to the composition of a fine murder than two blockheads to kill and be killed - a knife - a purse - and a dark lane...' In this provocative and blackly funny essay, Thomas de Quincey considers murder in a purely aesthetic light and explains how practically every philosopher over the past two hundred years has been murdered - 'insomuch, that if a man calls himself a philosopher, and never had his life attempted, rest assured there is nothing in him'. Introducing Little Black Classics: 80 books for Penguin's 80th birthday. Little Black Classics celebrate the huge range and diversity of Penguin Classics, with books from around the world and across many centuries. They take us from a balloon ride over Victorian London to a garden of blossom in Japan, from Tierra del Fuego to 16th-century California and the Russian steppe. Here are stories lyrical and savage; poems epic and intimate; essays satirical and inspirational; and ideas that have shaped the lives of millions. Thomas de Quincey (1785-1859). Thomas de Quincey's Confessions and an English Opium-Eater and Other Writings is available in Penguin Classics.

Explosive and unforgiving, Confessions of an English Opium-Eater describes in searing detail the pleasure, pain and mind-expanding powers of opium.

Part of the Macmillan Collector’s Library, a series of stunning, clothbound, pocket-sized classics with gold-foiled edges and ribbon markers. These beautiful books make perfect gifts or a treat for any book lover. This edition is introduced by biographer, critic and academic Dr Frances Wilson.

Thomas De Quincey takes us on a journey from his grammar school childhood to his homeless adolescence in Wales, from befriending prostitutes during his nocturnal wanderings in London to enrolling at Oxford University only to drop out when his drug use overcomes him. Thrust into a disorientating world of extreme euphoria and vivid nightmares, De Quincey’s life story is both unpredictable and deeply personal. Confessions of an English Opium-Eater is considered to be the first published autobiography to explore the lure and effects of addiction.