Read Guilty Thing: A Life of Thomas De Quincey

Guilty Thing: A Life of Thomas De Quincey

Frances Wilson

4.9/5 (20778 ratings)

Description:National Book Critics Circle Award, Biographers International Organization Plutarch Award and Los Angeles Times Book Prize FinalistNew York Times Book Review, Times Literary Supplement and The Guardian Best Books of 2016Thomas De Quincey was an obsessive. He was obsessed with Wordsworth and Coleridge, whose Lyrical Ballads provided the script to his life, and by the idea of sudden death. Running away from school to pursue the two poets, De Quincey insinuated himself into their world. Basing his sensibility on Wordsworth’s and his character on Coleridge’s, he forged a triangle of unusual psychological complexity.Aged twenty-four, De Quincey replaced Wordsworth as the tenant of Dove Cottage, the poet’s former residence in Grasmere. In this idyllic spot he followed the reports of the notorious Ratcliffe Highway murders of 1811, when two families, including a baby, were butchered in their own homes. In his opium-soaked imagination the murderer became a poet while the poet became a murderer. Embedded in On Murder as One of the Fine Arts, De Quincey’s brilliant series of essays, Frances Wilson finds the startling story of his relationships with Wordsworth and Coleridge.Opium was the making of De Quincey, allowing him to dissolve self-conflict, eliminate self-recrimination, and divest himself of guilt. Opium also allowed him to write, and under the pseudonym “The Opium-Eater” De Quincey emerged as the strangest and most original journalist of his age. His influence has been considerable. Poe became his double; Dostoevsky went into exile with Confessions of an English Opium-Eater in his pocket; and Charles Dickens, Oscar Wilde, George Orwell, Alfred Hitchcock, and Vladimir Nabokov were all De Quincey devotees. There have been other biographies of Thomas De Quincey, but Guilty Thing is the first to be animated by the spirit of De Quincey himself. Following the growth of his obsessions from seed to full flowering and tracing the ways they intertwined, Frances Wilson finds the master key to De Quincey’s vast Piranesian mind. Unraveling a tale of hero worship and revenge, Guilty Thing brings the last of the Romantics roaring back to life and firmly establishes Wilson as one of our foremost contemporary biographers.We have made it easy for you to find a PDF Ebooks without any digging. And by having access to our ebooks online or by storing it on your computer, you have convenient answers with Guilty Thing: A Life of Thomas De Quincey. To get started finding Guilty Thing: A Life of Thomas De Quincey, you are right to find our website which has a comprehensive collection of manuals listed.
Our library is the biggest of these that have literally hundreds of thousands of different products represented.

Pages: 416

Format: PDF, EPUB & Kindle Edition

Publisher: —

Release: —

ISBN: 0374710414

Description: National Book Critics Circle Award, Biographers International Organization Plutarch Award and Los Angeles Times Book Prize FinalistNew York Times Book Review, Times Literary Supplement and The Guardian Best Books of 2016Thomas De Quincey was an obsessive. He was obsessed with Wordsworth and Coleridge, whose Lyrical Ballads provided the script to his life, and by the idea of sudden death. Running away from school to pursue the two poets, De Quincey insinuated himself into their world. Basing his sensibility on Wordsworth’s and his character on Coleridge’s, he forged a triangle of unusual psychological complexity.Aged twenty-four, De Quincey replaced Wordsworth as the tenant of Dove Cottage, the poet’s former residence in Grasmere. In this idyllic spot he followed the reports of the notorious Ratcliffe Highway murders of 1811, when two families, including a baby, were butchered in their own homes. In his opium-soaked imagination the murderer became a poet while the poet became a murderer. Embedded in On Murder as One of the Fine Arts, De Quincey’s brilliant series of essays, Frances Wilson finds the startling story of his relationships with Wordsworth and Coleridge.Opium was the making of De Quincey, allowing him to dissolve self-conflict, eliminate self-recrimination, and divest himself of guilt. Opium also allowed him to write, and under the pseudonym “The Opium-Eater” De Quincey emerged as the strangest and most original journalist of his age. His influence has been considerable. Poe became his double; Dostoevsky went into exile with Confessions of an English Opium-Eater in his pocket; and Charles Dickens, Oscar Wilde, George Orwell, Alfred Hitchcock, and Vladimir Nabokov were all De Quincey devotees. There have been other biographies of Thomas De Quincey, but Guilty Thing is the first to be animated by the spirit of De Quincey himself. Following the growth of his obsessions from seed to full flowering and tracing the ways they intertwined, Frances Wilson finds the master key to De Quincey’s vast Piranesian mind. Unraveling a tale of hero worship and revenge, Guilty Thing brings the last of the Romantics roaring back to life and firmly establishes Wilson as one of our foremost contemporary biographers.We have made it easy for you to find a PDF Ebooks without any digging. And by having access to our ebooks online or by storing it on your computer, you have convenient answers with Guilty Thing: A Life of Thomas De Quincey. To get started finding Guilty Thing: A Life of Thomas De Quincey, you are right to find our website which has a comprehensive collection of manuals listed.
Our library is the biggest of these that have literally hundreds of thousands of different products represented.

Special Offer | $0.00

Special Offer! | $0.00

Guilty Thing: A Life of Thomas De Quincey

Guilty Thing: A Life of Thomas De Quincey

More Books

Burning Man: The Trials of D. H. Lawrence

Burning Man: The Trials of D. H. Lawrence

How to Survive the Titanic: or, The Sinking of J. Bruce Ismay

How to Survive the Titanic: or, The Sinking of J. Bruce Ismay

Electric Spark: The Enigma of Muriel Spark

Electric Spark: The Enigma of Muriel Spark

The Courtesan’s Revenge

The Courtesan’s Revenge

The Ballad of Dorothy Wordsworth

The Ballad of Dorothy Wordsworth

The Flock: The Autobiography of a Multiple Personality

The Flock: The Autobiography of a Multiple Personality

Women in the United States Marine Corps: Frances C. Wilson, Murder of Maria Lauterbach, Megan McClung, Lucy Brewer, Heather Cerveny

Women in the United States Marine Corps: Frances C. Wilson, Murder of Maria Lauterbach, Megan McClung, Lucy Brewer, Heather Cerveny

Literary Seductions: Compulsive Writers and Diverted Readers

Literary Seductions: Compulsive Writers and Diverted Readers