DE QUINCEY

Thomas ( 4 child of Thomas Quincey of Manchester, merchant, who d. 18 July 1793 aged 38 ). b. Manchester 15 Aug. 1785; ed. at Bath and Manchester gr. schs.; matric. from Worcester coll. Ox. 17 Dec. 1803 where his name remained on the books till Dec. 1810; student of Middle Temple about 1808; edited West more land Gazette 1819–20; wrote in the London Mag. 1821–24, Blackwood’s Mag. 1826–49 and Tait’s Mag. 1834–51; published Klosterheim, or the masque by the English opium eater 1832 which was dramatised for two of the London theatres; eat opium 1804–16, 1817–18, 1824–25 and 1841–44, in 1813 his dose had risen to 340 grains of opium or 8000 drops of laudanum per diem, about half what Cole ridge was taking at that time; he is described in J. H. Burton’s The Book Hunter as Papaverius; author of Confe ions of an English opium eater 1822 first published in the London Mag. 1821; The logic of political economy 1844; the first English edition of his collected works was published in 1853–60 as Selections grave and gay 14 vols. , 4 ed. 16 vols. 1875–80, the most complete edition of his works is the American in 20 vols. 1852–55. d. 42 Lothian st. Edinburgh 8 Dec. 1859. T. De Quincey by H. A. Page 2 vols. (1877), portrait ; D. Ma on’s De Quincey (1881); S. Hodgson’s Outcast E ays (1881) 1–98; F. Espina e’s Lancashire Worthies, second series (1877) 378–461; C. Mackay’s Forty years recollections (1877) i , 314–26; H. Martin eau’s Biographical Sketches , 4 ed. (1876) 409–17; John Bull Mag. July 1824 pp. 21–24.