# Thomas De Quincey

## Biography

Thomas De Quincey was an English essayist and literary critic, born in Manchester in 1785. After a challenging youth that included running away from school and a period of destitution in London, he attended Oxford University. It was during his time at Oxford that he began his lifelong struggle with opium addiction. Despite this, De Quincey became a close associate of Romantic poets like William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge.

His most famous work, "Confessions of an English Opium-Eater," published in 1821, brought him widespread recognition and launched his career as a prolific contributor to various magazines. This autobiographical narrative explored the pleasures and pains of his opium use, establishing him as a pioneer of addiction literature. De Quincey also penned significant literary criticism, such as "On the Knocking at the Gate in Macbeth," and is credited with inventing the true-crime genre with his essays "On Murder Considered as One of the Fine Arts." He spent much of his life grappling with poverty, debt, and his addiction, eventually dying in Edinburgh in 1859.

## Books

- [Confessions of an English Opium-Eater](https://samolit.com/books/96158)