The English Opium-Eater: A Biography of Thomas De Quincey - Hardcover

Morrison, Robert

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0297852795 ISBN 13: 9780297852797

Verlag: W&N, 2009

Inhaltsangabe

Physical description; xvii, 462 pages, 8 unnumbered pages of plates : illustrations ; 25 cm. Subject; De Quincey, Thomas 1785-1859.

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Críticas:

Robert Morrison's biography is astute and revealing, quarrying new sources. (JOHN CAREY SUNDAY TIMES 22.11.09)

I knew that I was on to a good thing with this book before the page numbers were even out of roman numerals... This was a lively life, and this is a lively Life... (SAM LEITH THE SPECTATOR - 5.12.09)

Morrison writes... with a combination of perspicacity and generous puzzlement... Thanks to Morrison... the life is clearer than it has ever been. (JAMES PURDON THE OBSERVER - 6.12.09)

"Robert Morrison's biography is impressive, the first biography of De Quincey in almost thirty years, and the first to use all his published and unpublished works." (TOM PAULIN THE LITERARY REVIEW - December 09)

an astute and revealing life (OUR CHOICE OF THE BEST RECENT BOOKS THE SUNDAY TIMES - 13.12.09)

The time was ripe for a new biography and Morrison has done his man proud. This is an exceptionally well-balanced account. (JONATHAN BATE - BOOK OF THE WEEK THE SUNDAY TELEGRAPH - 13.12.09)

"Far more than the other great essayists who were his contemporaries, De Quincey speaks to us directly about our divisions, our addictions, our losses, our selves." It's a large claim but one that is borne out by this fine survey of a remarkable life. (JOHN SUTHERLAND THE FINANCIAL TIMES - 23.12.09)

As Robert Morrison demonstrates in this engaging new biography, there was more to De Quincey than the addled fanatic who became addicted to laudanum (TREVOR ROYLE SUNDAY HERALD (SCOTLAND) 27.12.09)

Morrison provides a compelling survey of De Quincey's work as a biographer, satirist, economist, political commentator, translator, linguist and classicist. I cannot think of a more evocative introduction to the life and times of this remarkable writer. (DUNCAN WU THE INDEPENDENT - 08.01.10 BOOK OF THE WEEK)

a book which is full of insight and careful reasoning... Morrison does a superb job of literary detection going through a life of lies, procrastination and deceit, and teasing out whatever truth there is to be had. (JAD ADAMS THE GUARDIAN 09.01.10)

Reseña del editor:

Author of the famous and semi-scandalous CONFESSIONS OF AN ENGLISH OPIUM-EATER, Thomas De Quincey (1785-1859) has long lacked a fully fledged biography. His friendships with leading poets and men of letters in the Romantic and Victorian periods - including William Wordsworth, Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Thomas Carlyle - have long placed him at the centre of 19th-century literary studies. De Quincey also stands at the meeting point in the culture wars between Edinburgh and London; between high art and popular taste; and between the devotees of the Romantic imagination and those of hack journalism. He was a man who engaged with nearly every facet of literary culture, including the roles played by publishers, booksellers and journalists in literary production, dissemination and evaluation. His writing was a tremendous influence on Edgar Allan Poe, Charles Dickens, William Burroughs and Peter Ackroyd.

De Quincey is a fascinating (and topical) figure for other reasons too: a self-mythologizing autobiographer whose attitudes to drug-induced creativity and addiction strike highly resonant chords for a contemporary readership. Robert Morrison's biography passionately argues for the critical importance and enduring value of this neglected essayist, critic and biographer.

Über diese Auflage

• Verlag: W&N
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2009
• ISBN 10: 0297852795
• ISBN 13: 9780297852797
• Einband: Tapa dura
• Auflage: 1
• Anzahl der Seiten: 480