Confessions of an English Opium-Eater
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Confessions of an English Opium-Eater (1822) is an autobiographical novel by Thomas de Quincey first published in 1821 in the London Magazine, as a novel in 1822 and revised in 1856, about his laudanum (opium and alcohol) addiction and its effect on his life. The book follows the course of the author's experience with opium from his first encounter in college to the time of his malicious addiction later in life. Though originally published in 1821, de Quincey later released another edition in which he filled in many of the names he had left blank in the original. This is often attributed to his falling out with the Lake Poets, namely Wordsworth and Coleridge, whom he had admired greatly but ostracized him over personal matters.
The book was quite controversial, particularly because open discussion of addiction and other "moral faults" was taboo before and during the Victorian era. De Quincey gave one of the first literary accounts of the effects of the drug in a time where the drug's negative side-effects were not well understood.
De Quincey describes in detail the hallucinations he experienced under the influence of the drug, which range from the euphoric to the disturbing. By the end of the book De Quincey is unable to control his visions, which become increasingly real and terrifying.
The first French language translation appeared in 1828 by Alfred de Musset as "Le Mangeur d'Opium par Alfred de Musset" . Baudelaire also translated bits of the book and annotated them in his Artificial Paradises.
Influence
The Confessions maintained a place of primacy in De Quincey's literary output, and his literary reputation, from its first publication; "it went through countless editions, with only occasional intervals of a few years, and was often translated. Since there was little systematic study of narcotics until long after his death, De Quincey's account assumed an authoritative status and actually dominated the scientific and public views of the effects of opium for several generations."
Yet from the time of its publication, De Quincey's Confessions was criticized for presenting a picture of the opium experience that was too positive and too enticing to readers. As early as 1823, an anonymous response, Advice to Opium Eaters, was published "to warn others from copying De Quincey." The fear of reckless imitation was not groundless: several English writers — Francis Thompson, James Thomson, William Blair, and perhaps Branwell Brontë — were led to opium use and addiction by De Quincey's literary example. Charles Baudelaire's 1860 translation and adaptation, Les paradis artificiels, spread the work's influence further. One of the characters of the Sherlock Holmes story, The Man with the Twisted Lip (1891), is an opium addict who began experimenting with the drug as a student after reading the Confessions.
De Quincey attempted to address this type of criticism. When the 1821 original was printed in book form the following year, he added an Appendix on the withdrawal process; and he inserted significant material on the medical aspects of opium into his 1856 revision.
More generally, De Quincey's Confessions influenced psychology and abnormal psychology, and attitudes towards dreams and imaginative literature.
Confessions of an English Opium-Eater also served as inspiration to one of Hector Berlioz's most famous pieces, Symphonie Fantastique.
