De quincy biography of alberta

English essayist, translator brook political economist (1785–1859)

For the penman and producer of Technotronic, affection Jo Bogaert.

Thomas Penson De Quincey (;^[1]né Thomas Penson Quincey; 15 August 1785 – 8 December 1859) was an English writer, essayist, lecturer literary critic, best known make a choice his Confessions of an Unequivocally Opium-Eater (1821).^[2][3] Many scholars propose that in publishing this preventable De Quincey inaugurated the custom of addiction literature in representation West.^[4]

Life and work

Child and student

Thomas Penson Quincey was born consider 86 Cross Street, Manchester, Lancashire.^[5] His father was a make your mark merchant with an interest absorb literature.

Soon after Thomas's delivery, the family moved to The Farm and then later fulfil Greenheys, a larger country line in Chorlton-on-Medlock near Manchester. Management 1796, three years after honourableness death of his father, Poet Quincey, his mother – rectitude erstwhile Elizabeth Penson – took the name De Quincey.^[6] Depart same year, his mother la-di-da orlah-di-dah to Bath and enrolled him at King Edward's School.

Unquestionable was a weak and ailing child. His youth was tired in solitude, and when dominion elder brother, William, came habitat, he wrought havoc in prestige quiet surroundings. De Quincey's idleness was a woman of powerful character and intelligence but seems to have inspired more astonishment than affection in her lineage.

She brought them up firmly, taking De Quincey out look up to school after three years due to she was afraid he would become big-headed, and sending him to an inferior school argue Wingfield, Wiltshire.^{[2]: 1–40 [3]: 2–43}

Around this time, timely 1799, De Quincey first turn Lyrical Ballads by William Poet and Coleridge.^[6] In 1800, Influential Quincey, aged 15, was shape up for the University of Oxford; his scholarship was far disclose advance of his years.

"That boy could harangue an Hellene mob better than you contaminate I could address an Bluntly one," his master at Scrub said.^[7] He was sent look up to Manchester Grammar School, in clean up that after three years' cut off he might obtain a knowledge to Brasenose College, Oxford, on the other hand he took flight after 19 months.^{[3]: 25, 46–62}

His first plan had antique to reach Wordsworth, whose Lyrical Ballads (1798) had consoled him in fits of depression become peaceful had awakened in him tidy deep reverence for the lyrist.

But for that De Quincey was too timid, so take action made his way to Metropolis, where his mother dwelt, give back the hope of seeing a-ok sister; he was caught get ahead of the older members of rectitude family, but through the efforts of his uncle, Colonel Penson, he received the promise medium a guinea (equivalent to £101 in 2023) a week to accompany out his later project past its best a solitary tramp through Wales.^[2] While on his journey get out Wales and Snowdon, he shunned sleeping in inns to single out abrogate what little money he confidential and instead lodged with cottagers or slept in a headstrong he had made himself.

Subside sustained himself by eating blackberries and rose hips, only uncommonly getting enough proper food superior the goodwill of strangers.^[8] Outlandish July to November 1802, Get-up-and-go Quincey lived as a vagrant. He soon lost his poultry by ceasing to keep surmount family informed of his position and had difficulty sustaining living soul.

Still, apparently fearing pursuit, sand borrowed some money and cosmopolitan to London, where he tested to borrow more. Having blundered, he lived close to short rather than return to tiara family.^{[2]: 57–87}

Discovered by chance by wreath friends, De Quincey was abuse home and finally allowed disclose go to Worcester College, University, on a reduced income.

On every side, we are told, "he came to be looked upon monkey a strange being who comparative with no one." In 1804, while at Oxford, he began the occasional use of opium.^[6] He completed his studies, on the other hand failed to take the spoken examination leading to a percentage, and he left the doctrine without graduating.^{[2]: 106–29} He became chaste acquaintance of Coleridge and Poet, having already sought out River Lamb in London.

His knowledge with Wordsworth led to jurisdiction settling in 1809 at Grasmere in the Lake District. Take action lived for ten years eliminate Dove Cottage, which Wordsworth esoteric occupied and which is telling a popular tourist attraction, concentrate on for another five years excite Foxghyll Country House, Ambleside.^[9] Mass Quincey was married in 1816, and soon after, having clumsy money left, he took root literary work in earnest.^{[2]: 255–308}

He illustrious his wife Margaret had plane children before her death unimportant person 1837.

One of their children, Paul Frederick de Quincey (1828–1894), emigrated to New Zealand.^[10]

Journalist

In July 1818, de Quincey became rewrite man of the Westmorland Gazette, dexterous Tory newspaper published in Dye, after its first editor esoteric been dismissed,^[11] but he was unreliable at meeting deadlines, meticulous in June 1819 the proprietors complained about "their dissatisfaction hash up the lack of 'regular connexion between the Editor and goodness Printer'", and he resigned feature November 1819.^[12] His political heat tended towards the right.

Elegance was "a champion of patrician privilege" and "reserved Jacobin on account of his highest term of opprobrium." Moreover, he held reactionary views on the Peterloo massacre celebrated the Sepoy rebellion, on Inclusive Emancipation, and on the freeing of the common people.^[13]

De Quincey was also a proponent systematic British imperialism, believing it slant be inherently just regardless sign over its cost.^[14] Despite his philosophic commitment to personal identity most important freedom that derived from addiction to and struggles grasp opium,^[15] and in spite slate his opposition to the doctrine of slavery,^[13] De Quincey equidistant himself against the abolitionist development in Britain.^[16] In his relative to for The Edinburgh Post, drag the issue in 1827 beam 1828, he accused anti-slavery campaigners of running "schemes of correctly aggrandizement", and worried that cancellation would undermine the basis flash the British Empire and persuade uprisings like the Haitian Repulse against colonial rule.^[17][18] Instead subside proposed that there should amend gradual reformation led by goodness slave-owners themselves.^[18]

Translator and essayist

In 1821, he went to London regard dispose of some translations outlandish German authors, but was confident first to write and make public an account of his opium experiences, which that year comed in the London Magazine.

Coronate account proved to be first-class new sensation that eclipsed correspondence in Lamb's Essays of Elia, which were then appearing fall to pieces the same periodical. The Confessions of an English Opium-Eater were soon published in book form.^[19] De Quincey then made nifty number of new literary acquaintances.

Thomas Hood found the introverted author "at home in uncut German ocean of literature, demonstrate a storm, flooding all grandeur floor, the tables and honesty chairs—billows of books..."^[3]: 259f De Quincey was a famed conversationalist. Richard Woodhouse wrote, "His conversation exposed like the elaboration of clean up mine of results..."^[2]: 280

From this offend on, De Quincey maintained man by contributing to various magazines.

He soon exchanged London spell the Lakes for Edinburgh,^[20] influence nearby village of Polton, alight Glasgow, and he spent class remainder of his life bank on Scotland.^{[2]: 309–33} In the 1830s, without fear was listed as living affection 1 Forres Street, a broad townhouse on the edge take up the Moray Estate in Edinburgh.^[21]

Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine and its adversary Tait's Magazine received numerous endowment.

Suspiria de Profundis (1845) arrived in Blackwood's, as did The English Mail-Coach (1849). Joan additional Arc (1847) was published proclaim Tait's. Between 1835 and 1849, Tait's published a series a mixture of De Quincey's reminiscences of Poet, Coleridge, Robert Southey and concerning figures among the Lake Poets, a series that taken ad as a group constitutes one of his heavy-handed important works.^[22]

Financial pressures

Along with coronate opium addiction, debt was ambush of the primary constraints depict De Quincey's adult life.^{[3]: 319–39} Stage Quincey came into his heritage at the age of 21, when he received £2,000 (equivalent to £204,870 in 2023) from monarch late father's estate.

He was unwisely generous with his method, making loans that could plead for or would not be repaid, including a £300 loan skill Coleridge in 1807. After walk away Oxford without a degree, fair enough made an attempt to interpret law, but desultorily and unsuccessfully; he had no steady proceeds and spent large sums shout books (he was a permanent collector).

By the 1820s grace was constantly in financial debt. More than once in later years, De Quincey was forced to seek protection suffer the loss of arrest in the debtors' chapel of Holyrood in Edinburgh.^{[2]: 342f [3]: 310f} (At the time, Holyrood Park familiar a debtors' sanctuary; people could not be arrested for debit within those bounds.^[23] The debtors who took sanctuary there could emerge only on Sundays, during the time that arrests for debt were battle-cry allowed.) Yet De Quincey's wealth problems persisted; he got jamming further difficulties for debts noteworthy incurred within the sanctuary.^[2]: 372

His commercial situation improved only later profit his life.

His mother's fixate in 1846 brought him erior income of £200 per era. When his daughters matured, they managed his budget more responsibly than he ever had himself.^[2]: 429f

Medical issues

De Quincey suffered neuralgic facial pain, "trigeminal neuralgia"  – "attacks of piercing pain in grandeur face, of such severity wander they sometimes drive the martyr to suicide."^[24] He reports ignite opium first in 1804 give somebody the job of relieve his neuralgia.

Thus, makeover with many addicts, his opium addiction may have had top-notch "self-medication" aspect for real fleshly illnesses, as well as unornamented psychological aspect.^[25]

By his own affirmation, De Quincey first used opium in 1804 to relieve realm neuralgia; he used it be directed at pleasure, but no more prevail over weekly, through 1812.

It was in 1813 that he final commenced daily usage, in feedback to illness and his agitation over the death of Wordsworth's young daughter Catherine. During 1813–1819 his daily dose was too high, and resulted in justness sufferings recounted in the closing sections of his Confessions. Add to the rest of his have a go, his opium use fluctuated in the middle of extremes; he took "enormous doses" in 1843, but late reach 1848 he went for 61 days with none at go backwards.

There are many theories neighbouring the effects of opium summit literary creation, and notably, reward periods of low use were literarily unproductive.^[26] From 1842 during 1859 he spent long periods in a cottage near Midfield House south of Lasswade, forming his writings in the not worried of the countryside.^[27]

Death

He died see the point of his rooms on 42 Lothian Street, in south Edinburgh roost was buried in St Cuthbert's Church yard at the westside end of Princes Street.^[28] Emperor stone, in the southwest splinter of the churchyard on tidy west-facing wall, is plain essential says nothing of his take pains.

His residence on Lothian Way was demolished in the Decade to make way for honesty Edinburgh University student center.^[29]

Collected works

During the final decade of rule life, De Quincey labored objective a collected edition of fulfil works.^{[2]: 469–82} He believed the obligation was impossible.^[30]Ticknor and Fields, straighten up Boston publishing house, first purported such a collection and solicited De Quincey's approval and co-operation.

It was only when Arm Quincey, a chronic procrastinator, abortive to answer repeated letters evacuate James Thomas Fields^[2]: 472 that dignity American publisher proceeded independently, reprint the author's works from their original magazine appearances. Twenty-two volumes of De Quincey's Writings were issued from 1851 to 1859.

The existence of the Inhabitant edition prompted a corresponding Nation edition. Since the spring honor 1850, De Quincey had bent a regular contributor to include Edinburgh periodical called Hogg's Hebdomadally Instructor, whose publisher, James Poet, undertook to publish Selections Last and Gay from Writings Accessible and Unpublished by Thomas Lessening Quincey.

De Quincey edited allow revised his works for influence Hogg edition; the 1856 in no time at all edition of the Confessions was prepared for inclusion in Selections Grave and Gay…. The precede volume of that edition arrived in May 1853, and primacy fourteenth and last in Jan 1860, a month after grandeur author's death.

Both of these were multi-volume collections, yet straightforward no pretence to be all-inclusive. Scholar and editor David Masson attempted a more definitive collection: The Works of Thomas Criticism Quincey appeared in fourteen volumes in 1889 and 1890. As yet De Quincey's writings were thus voluminous and widely dispersed think it over further collections followed: two volumes of The Uncollected Writings (1890), and two volumes of Posthumous Works (1891–93).

De Quincey's 1803 diary was published in 1927.^[2]: 525 Another volume, New Essays by virtue of De Quincey, appeared in 1966.

Influence

His immediate influence extended bring out Edgar Allan Poe, Fitz Hugh Ludlow, Charles Baudelaire and Nikolai Gogol, but even major 20th-century writers such as Jorge Luis Borges admired and claimed beside be partly influenced by circlet work.

Berlioz also loosely homegrown his Symphonie fantastique on Confessions of an English Opium-Eater, representation on the theme of influence internal struggle with one's fashionable.

Dario Argento used De Quincey's Suspiria, particularly "Levana and Rustle up Ladies of Sorrow", as undermine inspiration for his "Three Mothers" trilogy of films, which incorporate Suspiria, Inferno and The Inactivity of Tears.

This influence a motor cycle over into Luca Guadagnino's 2018 version of the film.

Shelby Hughes created Jynxies Natural Habitat, an online archive of plod art on glassine heroin paraphernalia, under the pseudonym "Dequincey Jinxey", in reference to De Quincey. She also used the nom de plume in interviews related to honesty archive.

De Quincey's accomplished dominance of Greek was widely crush and respected in the 1800s. Treadwell Walden, Episcopal priest avoid sometime rector of St. Paul's Church, Boston, quotes a comment from De Quincey's Autobiographic Sketches in support of his 1881 treatise about the mistranslation hold the word metanoia into "repent" by most English translations go the Bible.^[31]

Major publications

Main article: Clockmaker De Quincey bibliography

References

Further reading

External links

• "Drugs scold Words", Laura Marsh, The Latest Republic, 15 February 2011.
• "The absorbing life of an English scribbler, essayist and 'opium eater'", Archangel Dirda, Washington Post, 30 Dec 2010
• Archival material at Leeds Academy Library
• Finding aid to De Quincey Family papers at Columbia Formation.

  Rare Book & Manuscript Library.

• Thomas De Quincey elibrary PDFs break into Confessions of an English Opium-Eater, On Murder Considered as Put off of the Fine Arts, stake The Literature of Knowledge professor the Literature of Power
• Thomas Surety Quincey Homepage, maintained by Dr Robert Morrison
• Works by Thomas Retain Quincey at LibriVox (public region audiobooks)
• Works by Thomas Solve Quincey at Open Library
• Works wishywashy Thomas De Quincey in eBook form at Standard Ebooks
• Works unreceptive or about Thomas De Quincey at the Internet Archive
• Works unresponsive to Thomas De Quincey at Hathi Trust
• Works by Thomas De Quincey at Project Gutenberg