The Confessions of an English Opium Eater.
Thomas De Quincy was a marveled man, but does that make his confessions legitimate. I don't think his confessions legitimize the use of opium. De Quincy's journey starts in the city of Manchester were he was born. Much of his child hood and teenage years are faded in his writings. Its hard to relate with a man whose ideals are hard to understand. De Quincy was around in the 19th century writing his confessions so the future generations can understand the use of an illegitimate drug.
De Quincy goes to great pains to explain his one year of poverty, which seems like a ten year ordeal. When he is on the streets he tells of stories of some people he had met but even then it seems a little faded to mind. De Quincy returned to college, in Oxford to further enhance his teachings. He was an extremely gifted man for he was an excellent linguist, especially in Greek and Greek history. Most everything De Quincy writes about will some way be related to Greek. College is were De Quincy was introduced to opium, a friend had given him a decanter of laudanum which he used for acute neuralgia pains. Soon after it was steadily upgraded to a dose. Though he didn't really become addicted to opium until some years later, I feel there is a lot not being shared. De Quincy says he is a very secretive man. "You will think, perhaps, that I am too confidential and communicative of my own private history"(De Quincy, Confessions 84) This explains a lot, it is quite possible the reason De Quincy took an absence from college was because of the illegitimate use of opium. He was an extremely smart man with a lot to offer, I cant think of any other reason why he would not stay. At one point he even gives remorse to the fact that he is leaving the college and how he will probably never see one of his professors again.
In the 19th century opium was legal to buy in stores in accordance with the fact that De Quincy bought it from a drug store.