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Confessions of an English Opium Eater

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Confessions of an English Opium Eater

By: Thomas De Quincey
Narrated by: Thomas Witworth
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About this listen

 Confessions of an English Opium-Eater, Thomas De Quincey's best-known work, is an account of his early life and opium addiction, in prose that is by turns witty, conversational, and nightmarish.

The Confessions involve the listener in De Quincey's childhood and schooling, describing in detail his flight at age 16 from Manchester Grammar School, his wanderings in North Wales and London, and his experiences with opium, which began while he was a student at Oxford and developed into a lifelong dependency.

Said critic Grevel Lindop, "The drug that brings an 'assuaging balm' to the wounded heart extracts a price, alienating the hero from humanity and offering only intangible, though exalted, compensations."

Said De Quincey himself, when looking for relief from excruciating pain, "By accident I met a college acquaintance who recommended opium. Opium! Dread agent of unimaginable pleasure and pain! I had heard of it as I had of manna or of ambrosia, but no further: how unmeaning a sound it was at that time!"

(P)Blackstone Audiobooks Addiction & Recovery Art & Literature Authors Drug use Witty Heartfelt

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All stars
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The narration isn't great - the accent and tone make it harder to feel immersed, which isn't what you want when the author was already writing in the late 1800s and has an unfamiliar style.

Overall, it's a short, rather boring account of Quincey's life. It's a cool story history-wise, and has its place as a piece of the canon, but if you're looking for an interesting discussion of drugs, this isn't it. At most, you get a couple of paragraphs where he describes the experience (that it's not like alcohol and that it makes visiting the opera more fun) and a trippy page or so where he describes the nightmares it's giving him (which are also filled with period-accurate racism. Not necessarily something to demonise the text for, but if that's an issue for you, you should know it's in there).

3 stars - I'm glad I learned a bit about the history of opiates from a non-medical source, and the name dropping he does also gives late 1700s/early 1800s literature an interesting slant. But every part of it that wasn't relating a drug experience was just the diary of an uninteresting dude. Probably wouldn't read again unless I was writing an essay.

Interesting mostly in theory

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An interesting, lucid account of a life and a relationship with a drug used mainly for pleasure over many years. Another classic ticked off the list in just three hours.

Worth listening

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A brilliant and poetic autobiographical exploration of opium use; really well narrated but poorly recorded / preserved, with a tinny ambience, some glitches, a couple of repeated sections and variations in levels. A shame, but still worth listening to.

Let down by poor recording

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As this was included with my membership and I didn’t pay for it I was happy to overlook some of the narration and technical issues and enjoy a classic in an accessible format.

Good for free

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The author is incredibly full of himself, but the book completely fails to really convey his experiences with opium especially the part where he attempts to describe his negative experiences.

Pretentious, boring

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