Who was Thomas de Quincey?
Essayist, Critic and Writer.
Date and Place of Birth:
15th August 1785, Manchester, England.
Family Background:
Fifth child and second son (of eight children)
of a successful and wealthy linen merchant.
Education:
Schools at Salford, Bath and Winkfield. Manchester
Grammar School (Ran away from aged 17). Worcester College, Oxford
(failed to take degree).
Chronology/Biography of Thomas De Quincey:
1792: Death of his
father and taken by his mother to live in Bath.
1802: Ran away from
school and toured Wales with the blessing of his mother and his
uncle. Finally ended up living in London with a prostitute called
Ann.
1803: Returned to
his family.
1804: First stared
using opium at Worcester College, Oxford when he used it for relief
from neuralgia.
1807: Meets Samuel
Taylor Coleridge for the first time
in Bath. Travels as escort to the Lake District with Sara Coleridge
and her two sons whilst Coleridge is
lecturing in London.
1809: Rented Dove
Cottage, Grasmere after it was vacated by Wordsworth
and Coleridge so that he could be near
the two poets.
Dove Cottage, Grasmere
(© Anthony Blagg)
1812: Started a
series of illnesses which meant he took stronger and stronger doses
of laudanum (opium in solution, usually of brandy).
1813: He was now
taking up to ten wine glasses of opium a day.
1817: Now taking
opium daily. Having used up all of his private fortune from his
family he had to earn a living as a journalist and was appointed
the Editor of the local Tory newspaper the Westmoreland Gazette.
Moved into Nab Cottage the home of Peggy SImpson whom he married.
1821: Left Dove
Cottage in Grasmere and moved to London where he wrote for Blackwood's
Magazine and the London Magazine. Published his most famous work
"Confessions of an English Opium Eater".It became an instant
bestseller and an inspiration to other writers.
1826: Moved to Edinburgh
with his wife and family of eight children.
1831: Imprisoned
for his debts.
Nab Cottage, Rydal, Lake District. Now a College.
(© Anthony Blagg)
1832: Death of one
of his sons aged two.
1833: Convicted
twice more for debts.
1834: Convicted
three times for debts. Death of another of his sons aged eighteen.
1837: After the
death of his wife he was convicted twice more for debts. Began taking
laudanum more and more frequently. Hartley Coleridge, the son of
Samuel Taylor Coleridge, moves into
Nab Cottage with him and is to remain there until he died in 1849.
1841: Moved briefly
to Glasgow to try and escape from his creditors.
1842: One of his
sons died fighting in the Opium Wars in China.
1843: Lived in a
small cottage in Lasswade.
1850: Moved back
to Edinburgh. His works began to be put out in book form by publishers
both in Britain and the United States.
Written Works:
- 1821: “Confessions
of an English Opium Eater.” “Recollections of the Lakes and the
Lake Poets.”
- 1823: "On
the Knocking at the Gate in Macbeth."
- 1825: "Walladmor".
- 1827:
“On Murder Considered as One of the Many Fine Arts.”
- 1832: "Klosterheim,
or the Masque."
- 1834: "Lake
Reminiscences."
- 1844: "The
Logic of Political Economy"
- 1845: "Suspira
de Profundis."
- 1849: "The
English Mail Coach."
- 1853: "Autobiographical
Sketches."
- 1853:
“Selections Grave and Gay.”
- (1889): Collected
Writings."
Marriage:
1817: Margaret (Peggy) Simpson, a farmer's daughter
whom he had made pregnant. (died 1837).
Places of Interest:
CUMBRIA:
Dove Cottage Museum and Wordsworth Trust, Grasmere.
Nab Cottage, Rydal. Now a language school.
Date and Place of Death:
8th December 1859. Edinburgh, Scotland.
Age at Death:
74.
Site of Grave:
West Churchyard in Edinburgh next to his wife
and two of his children.
