Thomas De Quincey

Robert Morrison (Queen's University at Kingston Ontario)
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Thomas De Quincey is one of the most important English essayists of the nineteenth-century. His writings include novels, short stories, translations of fiction mainly from the German, and works of literary theory, as well as essays critical, historical, political, economic, scientific, philological, and philosophical. He is best known for his

Confessions of an English Opium-Eater

, his essays “On Murder Considered as One of the Fine Arts”, and his biographical accounts of leading contemporary figures such as William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge.

Thomas De Quincey was born in Manchester on 15 August 1785. He was the fourth of eight children of Elizabeth Penson and Thomas Quincey, a prosperous linen merchant, who moved his family outside the city limits to a country house known

4424 words

Citation: Morrison, Robert. "Thomas De Quincey". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 30 June 2009 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/speople.php?rec=true&UID=1189, accessed 19 March 2024.]

1189 Thomas De Quincey 1 Historical context notes are intended to give basic and preliminary information on a topic. In some cases they will be expanded into longer entries as the Literary Encyclopedia evolves.

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