The opium-eater : a life of Thomas De Quincey

From the Globe and Mail reviewer - "The life story of Thomas De Quincey (1785-1859) is a cautionary tale about the twin dangers of becoming a drug addict and writing a bestselling book. A Manchester lad of modest means, De Quincey - like Daniel Defoe, he added the "De" to class up the name - had a prodigious talent for Latin and the Germanic languages. He entered university at 15 but departed without a degree, having "convinced himself that he was not likely to gain much from a place like Oxford in any case. Far better to live freely in London, enjoy the many riches of the city and get an education that way." The quotation is from a new biography by Robert Morrison of Queen's University in Kingston, Ont., a specialist in De Quincey and certain other 19th-century Romantics. It is a book that, in the best way, calls to mind an anecdote about De Quincey's friend and fellow essayist Charles Lamb. Each autumn Lamb would scour the second-hand book stalls for an inexpensive old folio volume that he and his mad sister Mary could pass the winter reading aloud to each other. The English Opium Eater: A Biography of Thomas De Quincey is certainly long (though not too long) and so rich in research that the readers can profitably ingest it at a relaxing rate......"