A book about opium usage and the effects of addiction on the authors life.

This book provides insight into the life of Thomas de Quincey and his work as an opium-eater. This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work is in the "public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.

This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work was reproduced from the original artifact, and remains as true to the original work as possible. Therefore, you will see the original copyright references, library stamps (as most of these works have been housed in our most important libraries around the world), and other notations in the work. This work is in the public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work.As a reproduction of a historical artifact, this work may contain missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.

**LONGLISTED FOR THE BAILLIE GIFFORD PRIZE FOR NON-FICTION 2016** **New York Times Book Review, Times Literary Supplement and Guardian Best Books of 2016** 'Life for De Quincey was either angels ascending on vaults of cloud or vagrants shivering on the city streets.' The last of the Romantics, Thomas De Quincey is a name synonymous with scandal. Modelling his character on Coleridge and his sensibility on Wordsworth, De Quincey took over the latter's former cottage and turned it into an opium den. Here, in the throes of his high, he nurtured his growing hatred of his former idols and wrote the notorious and fascinatingly strange essay 'On Murder Considered as one of the Fine Arts'. Despite never achieving the literary deification of his contemporaries, his narrative style – scripted and sculptured emotional memoir – was to inspire generations of writers: Dickens, Dostoevsky, Virginia Woolf. James Joyce knew whole pages of his work off by heart and he was arguably the father of what we now call psychogeography. Guilty Thing tells the riches-to-rags story of a dazzlingly complex and troubled figure, whose life was lived on the run, and affords De Quincey the literary biography he deserves.