0:00:07 > 0:00:13In 1821, a sensational piece of writing was published anonymously,
0:00:13 > 0:00:16charting a previously unmapped inner world.
0:00:18 > 0:00:20It was a stylistic tour-de-force -
0:00:20 > 0:00:23the first depiction of recreational drug use.
0:00:23 > 0:00:26But it was also the first autobiographical account
0:00:26 > 0:00:28of drug addiction.
0:00:31 > 0:00:35The book was Confessions of an English Opium Eater.
0:00:35 > 0:00:36Its author was Thomas De Quincey,
0:00:36 > 0:00:41aka the world's first self-confessed literary dope fiend.
0:00:43 > 0:00:46"I took it and in an hour,
0:00:46 > 0:00:48"oh, heavens, what a revulsion.
0:00:48 > 0:00:52"What an upheaving from its lowest depths of the inner spirit.
0:00:52 > 0:00:55"What an apocalypse of the world within me."
0:00:55 > 0:00:59It seduced and titillated contemporary society
0:00:59 > 0:01:01with its descriptions of its author's
0:01:01 > 0:01:05somnambulatory adventures whilst dosed up on opium.
0:01:07 > 0:01:10He wrote that he wanted others to benefit from the experience
0:01:10 > 0:01:13he had purchased at so heavy a price.
0:01:18 > 0:01:20My name is John Cooper Clarke -
0:01:20 > 0:01:23Professional poet, writer and erstwhile resident
0:01:23 > 0:01:27of the nebulous world of consensual slavery described herein.
0:01:31 > 0:01:34De Quincey may have called his book Confessions,
0:01:34 > 0:01:36but this is far from a straightforward memoir.
0:01:40 > 0:01:42I want to find out what inspired De Quincey
0:01:42 > 0:01:45to write this dark, romantic classic
0:01:45 > 0:01:48and get behind the persona of the Opium Eater.
0:02:01 > 0:02:04"Thou hast the keys of paradise,
0:02:04 > 0:02:09"oh, just, subtle, and mighty opium!"
0:02:11 > 0:02:14We've become so used to reading depictions of drug use today
0:02:14 > 0:02:18that it's become difficult to say anything new about the subject.
0:02:18 > 0:02:21However, Edgar Allan Poe, Charles Baudelaire,
0:02:21 > 0:02:24William Burroughs, Lou Reed
0:02:24 > 0:02:28have all, to some extent, been influenced by Thomas De Quincey.
0:02:31 > 0:02:35Confessions Of An English Opium Eater was first published
0:02:35 > 0:02:39as two magazine articles in the London Magazine in 1821.
0:02:43 > 0:02:45It was such an instant success
0:02:45 > 0:02:48that it was hastily reprinted in book form the following year...
0:02:50 > 0:02:53..garnering critical praise, public intrigue
0:02:53 > 0:02:55and becoming a bestseller.
0:02:57 > 0:03:02Its author was a slightly-built 36-year-old Oxford dropout.
0:03:02 > 0:03:07De Quincey had been a literary wannabe from his earliest years.
0:03:07 > 0:03:10And with his Confessions, he certainly stuck to that old adage of
0:03:10 > 0:03:12Write about what you know.
0:03:12 > 0:03:16At the time of writing, he'd been using opium for almost 20 years.
0:03:18 > 0:03:22"This is the doctrine of the true church on the subject of opium.
0:03:22 > 0:03:26"Of which church, I acknowledge myself to be the only member.
0:03:26 > 0:03:29"The alpha and the omega.
0:03:29 > 0:03:32"But, then, it is to be recollected that I speak from the ground
0:03:32 > 0:03:35"of a large and profound personal experience."
0:03:38 > 0:03:42Confessions was broken into three main chapter headings.
0:03:42 > 0:03:44The Preliminary Confessions,
0:03:44 > 0:03:48recounting the formative experiences of the addict as a young man,
0:03:48 > 0:03:52The Pleasures of Opium, celebrating his sublime highs,
0:03:52 > 0:03:56and The Pains of Opium, detailing the Gothic terrors
0:03:56 > 0:03:59which the drug reaps on his body and mind.
0:04:02 > 0:04:06But it was far from being a purely factual account of drug dependency.
0:04:08 > 0:04:12The very title of the book was carefully chosen for maximum effect
0:04:12 > 0:04:15and shows that De Quincey was not afraid to sacrifice
0:04:15 > 0:04:20a modicum of truth in pursuit of greater sensationalism.
0:04:22 > 0:04:24For one thing, De Quincey didn't eat opium.
0:04:24 > 0:04:29He drank laudanum, a potent tincture of opium dissolved in alcohol.
0:04:30 > 0:04:32Admittedly, laudanum quaffer
0:04:32 > 0:04:36doesn't have quite the same ring as opium eater.
0:04:41 > 0:04:44To the contemporary reader, the phrase opium eater
0:04:44 > 0:04:46would have evoked images of the exotic
0:04:46 > 0:04:49and the perceived decadence of the East.
0:04:49 > 0:04:52But the English were no strangers to the drug either.
0:04:59 > 0:05:02For most of the 19th century, laudanum was everywhere.
0:05:03 > 0:05:06An extract of the poppy, it was cheap,
0:05:06 > 0:05:09it was legal and was as ubiquitous as aspirin is today.
0:05:14 > 0:05:17Often, it cost less than ale or spirits.
0:05:19 > 0:05:22But despite its ubiquity, laudanum was highly addictive.
0:05:27 > 0:05:30It came under a variety of brand names.
0:05:31 > 0:05:34McMunn's Elixir,
0:05:34 > 0:05:36Kendal Black Drop,
0:05:36 > 0:05:38Dalby's Carminative,
0:05:38 > 0:05:41Battley's Sedative Solution,
0:05:41 > 0:05:45Mother Bailey's Quieting Syrup.
0:05:45 > 0:05:47They gave it to babies.
0:05:51 > 0:05:55Since the 20th century, opium has perhaps become more famous
0:05:55 > 0:05:58in the form of one of its cheap derivatives -
0:05:58 > 0:06:00diamorphine, aka heroin.
0:06:03 > 0:06:05And me and it have history.
0:06:06 > 0:06:08As a tubercular child,
0:06:08 > 0:06:13I was first introduced to morphine as a cough suppressant.
0:06:13 > 0:06:17So when I, er... many years later, er...
0:06:17 > 0:06:23was reintroduced to it in a non-therapeutic situation,
0:06:23 > 0:06:27it was - more than anything - it was...familiar.
0:06:36 > 0:06:40In the book, De Quincey talks about his own first time buying the drug
0:06:40 > 0:06:44at the age of 19 in religious terms,
0:06:44 > 0:06:46describing the druggist as an
0:06:46 > 0:06:49"unconscious minister of celestial pleasures.
0:06:51 > 0:06:53"And when I asked for the tincture of opium,
0:06:53 > 0:06:56"he gave it to me as any other man might do.
0:06:57 > 0:07:01"Nevertheless, in spite of such indications of humanity,
0:07:01 > 0:07:03"he has ever since existed in my mind
0:07:03 > 0:07:07"as the beatific vision of an immortal druggist
0:07:07 > 0:07:10"sent down to earth on a special mission to myself."
0:07:14 > 0:07:19De Quincey gave several reasons for his initial acquaintance with opium.
0:07:19 > 0:07:24Among them, neuralgia, toothache and nervous irritation.
0:07:24 > 0:07:27Although De Quincey first administered opium
0:07:27 > 0:07:29for legitimate medical reasons,
0:07:29 > 0:07:33he quickly became enamoured of the drug's side effects.
0:07:39 > 0:07:42He describes how he would often take a debouch of opium
0:07:42 > 0:07:44and head off to the opera,
0:07:44 > 0:07:46or stroll the labyrinthine streets of London,
0:07:46 > 0:07:50shmying around amongst his fellow nightwalkers.
0:07:55 > 0:07:59Here was the happiness about which philosophers had disputed
0:07:59 > 0:08:01for so many ages.
0:08:01 > 0:08:05But once discovered, happiness might now be bought for a penny
0:08:05 > 0:08:08and carried in the waistcoat pocket.
0:08:14 > 0:08:17Taking laudanum might have been socially acceptable back then,
0:08:17 > 0:08:20but De Quincey's outspoken celebration of it
0:08:20 > 0:08:22also attracted moral outrage.
0:08:25 > 0:08:30The notion that this drug was not to take away pain,
0:08:30 > 0:08:33it was to enhance your enjoyment of books,
0:08:33 > 0:08:36music, crowds, solitude,
0:08:36 > 0:08:39that was... That caused a sensation.
0:08:39 > 0:08:43Because people hadn't thought of the drug in that way before.
0:08:43 > 0:08:46We don't get notions of addiction until later down the 19th century.
0:08:46 > 0:08:48It's a habit. Habit, yeah.
0:08:48 > 0:08:50And you've got a very, very bad habit.
0:08:50 > 0:08:52And De Quincey's going to come out
0:08:52 > 0:08:54and he's going to give you a confession
0:08:54 > 0:08:55to sort of educate you about drugs.
0:08:55 > 0:08:59So, he's out there so we don't have to be?
0:08:59 > 0:09:01He says, "I've written this because
0:09:01 > 0:09:05"I want the opium eater, or the potential opium eater...
0:09:05 > 0:09:08"I've written it to make him fear and tremble.
0:09:08 > 0:09:10"And if I've accomplished that,
0:09:10 > 0:09:11"if I've sort of educated him in that way,
0:09:11 > 0:09:13"then I've done what I set out to do."
0:09:13 > 0:09:15I think that is nonsense.
0:09:15 > 0:09:20He, er...makes people very, very interested in opium.
0:09:20 > 0:09:21And, in fact, De Quincey writes a letter
0:09:21 > 0:09:24after the Confessions comes out and he says,
0:09:24 > 0:09:28"I think that I made the pains of opium a little too glamorous.
0:09:28 > 0:09:31"That is to say that they gave me these tremendous nightmares,
0:09:31 > 0:09:33"these terrifying sort of Gothic nightmares
0:09:33 > 0:09:35"of incarceration and anxiety and pursuit."
0:09:35 > 0:09:37And people went, "Oh, cool!"
0:09:37 > 0:09:39JOHN LAUGHS "That's cool, right?"
0:09:39 > 0:09:44So what happens very often with the Gothic is that, you know,
0:09:44 > 0:09:47if you can stand back and say, "I'm going to experiment with the drug
0:09:47 > 0:09:50"and I'm going to get those fantastic nightmares,
0:09:50 > 0:09:52"but I'm not going to become an addict,"
0:09:52 > 0:09:55well, that, I think, is a fairly familiar narrative today.
0:09:55 > 0:10:00"I can leave it alone any time I like."
0:10:00 > 0:10:03And that sense in which the drug is tricking you all the while
0:10:03 > 0:10:05and sucking you under all the while.
0:10:07 > 0:10:09The very term autobiography
0:10:09 > 0:10:11was still relatively new in De Quincey's age,
0:10:11 > 0:10:15and he stressed that his confession would be different to what he called
0:10:15 > 0:10:19the gratuitous self-humiliation of French literature.
0:10:19 > 0:10:22A man of letters stepping forward and saying,
0:10:22 > 0:10:24"Here's what's been happening in my life,"
0:10:24 > 0:10:27that was, um...not done.
0:10:27 > 0:10:29And Rousseau's confessions sit before De Quincey,
0:10:29 > 0:10:33but in the first paragraph of De Quincey's Confessions,
0:10:33 > 0:10:35he sort of steps forward and says,
0:10:35 > 0:10:39"This is not going to be like a French confession.
0:10:39 > 0:10:41"This is a very English confession."
0:10:41 > 0:10:44And so he takes that tradition
0:10:44 > 0:10:47and, um...and sort of reinvents it.
0:10:50 > 0:10:53In the chapter entitled The Preliminary Confessions,
0:10:53 > 0:10:57De Quincey recounts his early life.
0:10:57 > 0:10:59De Quincey was born in Manchester.
0:10:59 > 0:11:01His father died when he was young,
0:11:01 > 0:11:03leaving him a modest fortune.
0:11:07 > 0:11:09He describes how, in 1800,
0:11:09 > 0:11:12his mother packed him off to Manchester Grammar School.
0:11:12 > 0:11:15But the precocious Thomas, who aspired to be a poet,
0:11:15 > 0:11:18became so miserable he ran away,
0:11:18 > 0:11:21ending up destitute in London at the age of 17.
0:11:22 > 0:11:25He would also describe these early London experiences
0:11:25 > 0:11:28as a seminal influence upon the rest of his life.
0:11:31 > 0:11:33Though he had yet to experience opium,
0:11:33 > 0:11:37De Quincey believed that the damage inflicted on his body and spirit
0:11:37 > 0:11:40would, in large part, lead to his later dependency.
0:11:43 > 0:11:45He tells of his friendship with Ann,
0:11:45 > 0:11:47a 15-year-old prostitute
0:11:47 > 0:11:50with whom De Quincey would walk up and down Oxford Street,
0:11:50 > 0:11:53enduring the poverty and hunger together.
0:11:54 > 0:11:58De Quincey left London for a few days and, upon his return,
0:11:58 > 0:12:01failed to find her at their agreed rendezvous point.
0:12:02 > 0:12:06"To this hour, I have never heard a syllable about her.
0:12:06 > 0:12:09"This, amongst such troubles as most men meet within this life,
0:12:09 > 0:12:12"has been my heaviest affliction."
0:12:14 > 0:12:16According to Confessions, she would haunt
0:12:16 > 0:12:20his opium-induced dreams for decades to come.
0:12:21 > 0:12:24But some of the most famous passages of Confessions
0:12:24 > 0:12:28are set not on the lonely, unforgiving streets of London...
0:12:29 > 0:12:32..but amongst the damp and austere hills
0:12:32 > 0:12:34of Grasmere in the Lake District.
0:12:36 > 0:12:40De Quincey fast-forwards his narrative to 1812,
0:12:40 > 0:12:43and of his experience in London, he declares,
0:12:43 > 0:12:46"I'm 250 miles away from it
0:12:46 > 0:12:49"and buried in the depth of mountains.
0:12:49 > 0:12:52"And what am I doing amongst the mountains?
0:12:52 > 0:12:55"Taking opium. Yes, but what else?"
0:12:58 > 0:13:01No wonder De Quincey was on dope.
0:13:01 > 0:13:04This is the first time I've seen this place in Technicolor.
0:13:04 > 0:13:07In fact, it has long been my contention
0:13:07 > 0:13:11that to live in the Lake District is to opt for the indoor life.
0:13:11 > 0:13:13Here's a couple of first impressions
0:13:13 > 0:13:15I've scribbled down since I got here.
0:13:17 > 0:13:19"This morbid crater,
0:13:19 > 0:13:22"this monochrome font of fathomless misery.
0:13:23 > 0:13:25"Book early."
0:13:30 > 0:13:33Of course, slightly more celebratory verses were written
0:13:33 > 0:13:35about this place by William Wordsworth,
0:13:35 > 0:13:38who, along with his friend Samuel Taylor Coleridge,
0:13:38 > 0:13:41helped to kick-start the romantic age in English literature.
0:13:43 > 0:13:45De Quincey hero-worshipped them both.
0:13:45 > 0:13:48He later described reading their poetry as,
0:13:48 > 0:13:51"The greatest event in the unfolding of my own mind."
0:13:53 > 0:13:56He did everything he could to make their acquaintance,
0:13:56 > 0:13:59even travelling for days just to catch a glimpse
0:13:59 > 0:14:03of Wordsworth at home, here in Dove Cottage.
0:14:03 > 0:14:06Coleridge was also an aficionado of laudanum
0:14:06 > 0:14:09and recognised a kindred soul in De Quincey,
0:14:09 > 0:14:12warning his young admirer about the dangers of the drug.
0:14:12 > 0:14:15Not that De Quincey took any notice.
0:14:17 > 0:14:19De Quincey became a regular visitor to Dove Cottage,
0:14:19 > 0:14:22spending so much time with the Wordsworths that, for a while,
0:14:22 > 0:14:25he was considered almost a member of the family.
0:14:27 > 0:14:29When they moved to another house nearby,
0:14:29 > 0:14:32he decided to rent the place for himself.
0:14:34 > 0:14:37Confessions was actually written over a short period back in London,
0:14:37 > 0:14:40where De Quincey was trying to pay off his growing debts
0:14:40 > 0:14:43by writing for the periodical press.
0:14:43 > 0:14:48But a section of the manuscript is kept at Dove Cottage library
0:14:48 > 0:14:51and curator Jeff Cowton is going to help me explore it.
0:14:51 > 0:14:54So this isn't De Quincey creating his work,
0:14:54 > 0:14:57this is De Quincey preparing it to go to the printer.
0:14:57 > 0:15:01So what you're going to see should be neat and it should be readable
0:15:01 > 0:15:03and it should be very easy for the printer to understand.
0:15:03 > 0:15:05But you can see... He's made a mess of that.
0:15:05 > 0:15:07Look at that. Oh, my God!
0:15:07 > 0:15:09And these stains are...?
0:15:09 > 0:15:11When we bought the manuscript,
0:15:11 > 0:15:13there was a suggestion that they might be opium stains.
0:15:13 > 0:15:15And it wasn't opium at all, of course,
0:15:15 > 0:15:17it was just plain old coffee.
0:15:17 > 0:15:20Because he was pursued by debt collectors,
0:15:20 > 0:15:21he had to flee his house for a time,
0:15:21 > 0:15:23so he wrote some of it in the coffee houses.
0:15:23 > 0:15:26And remember the pressure he was under, you know?
0:15:26 > 0:15:29So while he's writing this, he's got the boy from the printer
0:15:29 > 0:15:32who's coming around and saying, "Have you done the next bit yet?"
0:15:32 > 0:15:37So the publisher starts to get a bit anxious when,
0:15:37 > 0:15:39after having received several of these batches,
0:15:39 > 0:15:42he still hasn't got to the subject of opium.
0:15:42 > 0:15:44So he instructs De Quincey to write a page
0:15:44 > 0:15:46to explain why all this early stuff is here
0:15:46 > 0:15:49and what it's got to do with this topic.
0:15:49 > 0:15:52So you can see here that there's an extra page
0:15:52 > 0:15:56that De Quincey has added and inserted earlier on
0:15:56 > 0:15:59to explain why he's talking about his childhood so much.
0:15:59 > 0:16:02It's so that when De Quincey later on talks about his dreams
0:16:02 > 0:16:04and about how he has dreams of his earlier life...
0:16:04 > 0:16:08So the resonance of the earlier pages comes into play.
0:16:08 > 0:16:10Absolutely so, yeah.
0:16:10 > 0:16:12So that's what a manuscript can tell you, really.
0:16:12 > 0:16:15You can see inside the story.
0:16:15 > 0:16:18So this is how it was published in the magazine
0:16:18 > 0:16:22and then it appears as a published book.
0:16:22 > 0:16:24And it doesn't have his name on there, does it?
0:16:24 > 0:16:27It's anonymously published. Yes, that's right.
0:16:27 > 0:16:31But what we did note is that De Quincey
0:16:31 > 0:16:34was privy to Wordsworth's manuscript.
0:16:34 > 0:16:38And he read the great poem of Wordsworth - he read The Prelude
0:16:38 > 0:16:40while it was still a manuscript, long before it was published.
0:16:40 > 0:16:44And that was a great influence on De Quincey himself.
0:16:44 > 0:16:48Wordsworth was a great believer in the... As he said, "The child is father of the man."
0:16:48 > 0:16:51It's how your childhood shapes the way you become.
0:16:51 > 0:16:53And so, too, with De Quincey.
0:16:53 > 0:16:57And the opium that he takes gives him that brilliance of thought
0:16:57 > 0:16:59to see it more clearly.
0:16:59 > 0:17:02So for De Quincey, the pleasures of opium is the sharpening
0:17:02 > 0:17:05and the brilliance of the mind as a result.
0:17:05 > 0:17:11And of the recollective powers of, er...dreams. Yeah.
0:17:11 > 0:17:14I know it's highly disrespectful - here we are, sat in his gaff,
0:17:14 > 0:17:19but De Quincey, yes. Wordsworth, no, pour moi.
0:17:19 > 0:17:23Why? To be honest, I never bought that whole mythology
0:17:23 > 0:17:24of the Lake District thing.
0:17:24 > 0:17:26No offence, Jeff, you know.
0:17:26 > 0:17:30So I can only think that it is the very climate
0:17:30 > 0:17:32that induces severe misery
0:17:32 > 0:17:37in any ordinary person is a positive bonus to the bookish type.
0:17:37 > 0:17:39THEY LAUGH
0:17:44 > 0:17:48I first read Thomas De Quincey 40 years ago.
0:17:48 > 0:17:55So to see those lines in his own hand is...quite a connection.
0:17:55 > 0:18:00And, yeah, I mean, it's an amazing piece.
0:18:00 > 0:18:04And quite a privilege to be allowed to...browse around it.
0:18:04 > 0:18:08It is heavy, having said that.
0:18:08 > 0:18:11You know, touching the very paper on that.
0:18:11 > 0:18:16Oh, yeah. I can feel half a dozen works of art are coming on already.
0:18:19 > 0:18:21During his early years here,
0:18:21 > 0:18:24it seemed that De Quincey had found happiness.
0:18:24 > 0:18:27And there were still the pleasures of opium to be had.
0:18:28 > 0:18:30"Paint me, then, a room.
0:18:30 > 0:18:32"Make it populous with books.
0:18:32 > 0:18:35"And furthermore, paint me a good fire.
0:18:35 > 0:18:37"And furniture plain and modest,
0:18:37 > 0:18:41"befitting the unpretending cottage of a scholar.
0:18:42 > 0:18:46"As for the opium, I have no objection to see a picture of that.
0:18:46 > 0:18:49"And you may as well paint the real receptacle,
0:18:49 > 0:18:52"which was not of gold, but of glass,
0:18:52 > 0:18:55"and as much like a wine decanter as possible.
0:18:55 > 0:18:59"Into this, you may pour a quart of ruby-coloured laudanum.
0:18:59 > 0:19:04"That and a book of German metaphysics placed by its side
0:19:04 > 0:19:07"will sufficiently attest my being in the neighbourhood."
0:19:10 > 0:19:14But De Quincey's happiness would not last very long.
0:19:14 > 0:19:17The drug was tightening its grip on him all the time.
0:19:18 > 0:19:21For the first eight years, he had been an occasional drug user.
0:19:21 > 0:19:24But by 1813, De Quincey wrote
0:19:24 > 0:19:27that he had become a regular and confirmed opium eater.
0:19:30 > 0:19:33He claimed the immediate cause was illness brought about by grief
0:19:33 > 0:19:35at the death of Wordsworth's
0:19:35 > 0:19:38three-year-old favourite daughter, Catherine.
0:19:40 > 0:19:41De Quincey was so affected
0:19:41 > 0:19:45that he apparently slept on her grave every night for eight weeks.
0:19:47 > 0:19:49Sad.
0:19:49 > 0:19:50Morbid.
0:19:50 > 0:19:52Strange.
0:19:52 > 0:19:56De Quincey's dependency escalated,
0:19:56 > 0:19:58and he claims in the book to have been taking
0:19:58 > 0:20:018,000 drops of laudanum a day.
0:20:01 > 0:20:04That's 80 teaspoons. Count them.
0:20:12 > 0:20:14He suffered nausea, pain and depression
0:20:14 > 0:20:17whenever he tried to wean himself off.
0:20:17 > 0:20:20But his physical sufferings seemed slight
0:20:20 > 0:20:23compared to the tortures of his mind.
0:20:23 > 0:20:25Especially his vivid, drug-induced dreams.
0:20:31 > 0:20:33The chapter on The Pains of Opium
0:20:33 > 0:20:37contains some of De Quincey's most memorable writing.
0:20:38 > 0:20:40"I was stared at, hooted at,
0:20:40 > 0:20:43"grunted at, chattered at by monkeys.
0:20:43 > 0:20:45"I had done a deed, they said,
0:20:45 > 0:20:49"which the ibis and the crocodile trembled at.
0:20:49 > 0:20:53"I was buried for a thousand years in stone coffins
0:20:53 > 0:20:55"with mummies and sphinxes,
0:20:55 > 0:20:59"in narrow chambers at the heart of eternal pyramids.
0:20:59 > 0:21:03"I was kissed with cancerous kisses by crocodiles
0:21:03 > 0:21:07"and laid confounded with all unutterable slimy things
0:21:07 > 0:21:11"amongst reeds and Nilotic mud."
0:21:14 > 0:21:17He leaves the impression of a man who, although deranged,
0:21:17 > 0:21:21is in possession of some particular esoteric learning.
0:21:21 > 0:21:26The repetitious use of "I was, I was, I was"...
0:21:28 > 0:21:31..you know, lending it a poetical musicality
0:21:31 > 0:21:35that prose does not usually possess.
0:21:35 > 0:21:40It predates notions of automatic writing,
0:21:40 > 0:21:44riffing and surrealism.
0:21:44 > 0:21:47He was trying to achieve what he would later call
0:21:47 > 0:21:50a style of impassioned prose.
0:21:52 > 0:21:54Confessions was an immediate success.
0:21:54 > 0:21:57Reviewers praised its powerful style.
0:21:57 > 0:22:00However, others were somewhat less impressed.
0:22:00 > 0:22:03According to the authors of the Family Oracle of Health,
0:22:03 > 0:22:06"The use of opium has been recently much increased
0:22:06 > 0:22:09"by a wild, absurd and romancing production
0:22:09 > 0:22:12"called The Confessions Of An English Opium Eater."
0:22:16 > 0:22:18He might have been criticised for enticing readers
0:22:18 > 0:22:21to abuse the drug for themselves,
0:22:21 > 0:22:23but at the end of the book, De Quincey boasted
0:22:23 > 0:22:28that he himself had finally defeated his own dependency on laudanum.
0:22:28 > 0:22:31In reality, this was far from the truth.
0:22:33 > 0:22:35De Quincey would remain almost constantly broke
0:22:35 > 0:22:41and plagued by his addiction. An all-too-familiar tale.
0:22:41 > 0:22:43I took it for 15 years. And for most of that time,
0:22:43 > 0:22:49I was concocting elaborate and extravagant plans to clean up...
0:22:51 > 0:22:55..which involved moving to other countries.
0:22:56 > 0:22:58What they call a geographical.
0:23:00 > 0:23:03But the trouble with moving to another country is
0:23:03 > 0:23:05you've got to take yourself with you.
0:23:08 > 0:23:11De Quincey's problems would also follow him wherever he went.
0:23:11 > 0:23:14In 1830, his financial troubles
0:23:14 > 0:23:16forced him to move from Grasmere
0:23:16 > 0:23:20to the publishing powerhouse of the Scottish capital,
0:23:20 > 0:23:25becoming a regular contributor to Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine.
0:23:25 > 0:23:28The next 30 years were spent ducking and diving from one lodging house
0:23:28 > 0:23:32to another with angry Scottish creditors in hot pursuit,
0:23:32 > 0:23:36often without much food, or even clothes.
0:23:36 > 0:23:39It is not unknown for writers to suffer financially.
0:23:39 > 0:23:41Tell me about it.
0:23:41 > 0:23:45But De Quincey, he got a really bad time.
0:23:49 > 0:23:52He would go on to write other celebrated essays,
0:23:52 > 0:23:57but De Quincey would often cash in on the success of Confessions
0:23:57 > 0:24:00by using the by-line, The Opium Eater.
0:24:00 > 0:24:04He was also not quite done with his most famous work.
0:24:05 > 0:24:08De Quincey always considered the original Confessions
0:24:08 > 0:24:11to be too rushed and not quite long enough.
0:24:11 > 0:24:13He knew he had much more to say upon the subject
0:24:13 > 0:24:18and in 1856, he published a revised edition,
0:24:18 > 0:24:21almost tripling the size of the original.
0:24:23 > 0:24:25One edition was a lengthy attack on his former hero
0:24:25 > 0:24:28and fellow opium addict, Coleridge,
0:24:28 > 0:24:31who had been critical of De Quincey's glorification
0:24:31 > 0:24:34of the drug in the original Confessions.
0:24:34 > 0:24:37De Quincey wrote of Coleridge,
0:24:37 > 0:24:40"There never was a distinction more groundless and visionary
0:24:40 > 0:24:42"than that which it has pleased him to draw
0:24:42 > 0:24:45"between my motives and his own."
0:24:47 > 0:24:50De Quincey's revised edition would form a good argument
0:24:50 > 0:24:52for not rewriting your old work.
0:24:53 > 0:24:54One of the reasons, I think,
0:24:54 > 0:24:58De Quincey's reputation has been held back a little bit is we knew Confessions
0:24:58 > 0:25:02in what I would regard as the inferior form for a long time.
0:25:02 > 0:25:05It's lost its concision, for sure. It's lost its compression. Yeah.
0:25:05 > 0:25:09De Quincey said it's like, you know, a spontaneous solo.
0:25:09 > 0:25:12You know, "It just burst from me
0:25:12 > 0:25:15"under the pressure of having to get it done in 1821
0:25:15 > 0:25:17"and now I'm sort of sitting back, surveying my career
0:25:17 > 0:25:19"and this is my great work
0:25:19 > 0:25:22"and so I'm going to make my final claims for why I took opium,
0:25:22 > 0:25:26"make my final claims for what my relationship was like with Samuel Taylor Coleridge."
0:25:26 > 0:25:30He and De Quincey had been sort of scrapping and squabbling about opium
0:25:30 > 0:25:32and who took what and who took it when and why they took it.
0:25:32 > 0:25:34And Coleridge only took it for medical reasons
0:25:34 > 0:25:36and De Quincey says that's nonsense.
0:25:36 > 0:25:41So did he have any extravagant plans for leading the sober life?
0:25:42 > 0:25:45De Quincey often says, "I've kicked it."
0:25:45 > 0:25:47Even at the end of the... JOHN LAUGHS
0:25:47 > 0:25:49..at the end of the 1821... That's my boy!
0:25:49 > 0:25:51Yeah? THEY LAUGH
0:25:51 > 0:25:54He says, you know, "I've almost... I've unwound the cursed chain
0:25:54 > 0:25:56"almost to its final link."
0:25:56 > 0:25:59And he tells his wife, he tells his friends,
0:25:59 > 0:26:02he tells his publishers, he tells his children that he has kicked it.
0:26:02 > 0:26:05I think one reason he keeps telling the story over and over
0:26:05 > 0:26:08is because he wants to write a version of it in which
0:26:08 > 0:26:12he's in control of the drug and the drug isn't in control of him.
0:26:12 > 0:26:16De Quincey doesn't come out and denounce the drug,
0:26:16 > 0:26:19and he doesn't come out and just blindly celebrate it.
0:26:19 > 0:26:24He comes out and says, "Let me tell you all-round what this is like."
0:26:24 > 0:26:29And that sense in which he gives us a multi-sided perspective
0:26:29 > 0:26:32on that experience means that other writers who come after him
0:26:32 > 0:26:34take him as a starting point.
0:26:34 > 0:26:35WS Burroughs says,
0:26:35 > 0:26:38"The first and best book on drug addiction is De Quincey."
0:26:38 > 0:26:42And I think that's broadly recognised in literary circles.
0:26:48 > 0:26:50For many years, De Quincey's book would influence
0:26:50 > 0:26:53public opinion towards opium addiction.
0:26:53 > 0:26:55It would also serve as a handbook
0:26:55 > 0:26:58for generations of narcoticised writers.
0:27:00 > 0:27:05As for De Quincey himself, he died in Edinburgh in 1859,
0:27:05 > 0:27:07at 74 years of age.
0:27:07 > 0:27:09Whatever else opium had done for him,
0:27:09 > 0:27:11it had not much shortened his life.
0:27:15 > 0:27:20De Quincey used opium to explore his dramatic inner world.
0:27:20 > 0:27:23To my mind, he was a visionary in a utilitarian age.
0:27:23 > 0:27:26In the early days of the Industrial Revolution,
0:27:26 > 0:27:30the qualities of vigour, productivity and strength
0:27:30 > 0:27:33were valued over opiated idleness.
0:27:33 > 0:27:37And then there's De Quincey, living like a secular monk
0:27:37 > 0:27:39in the tainted monastery of his own mind.
0:27:44 > 0:27:47Opium had opened the gates to his mind,
0:27:47 > 0:27:49both as paradise and perdition.
0:27:49 > 0:27:51It rendered him to a poetic radiance,
0:27:51 > 0:27:56these strange and spectral visions of his accumulated memories.
0:27:58 > 0:28:01"The subject was to display the marvellous agency of opium,
0:28:01 > 0:28:04"whether for pleasure or for pain.
0:28:04 > 0:28:08"If that is done, the action of the piece is closed."
0:28:10 > 0:28:13If you want to dig deeper into Thomas De Quincey's
0:28:13 > 0:28:15Confessions Of An English Opium Eater,
0:28:15 > 0:28:19or any of the other books in this series, go to...
0:28:24 > 0:28:27..and follow the links to the Open University.
0:28:54 > 0:28:57For nearly 100 years, the BBC has been informing, educating
0:28:57 > 0:29:00and entertaining audiences across the UK,
0:29:00 > 0:29:01and every ten years
0:29:01 > 0:29:05there's a government review to consider the future of the BBC.