Confessions of an English Opium-Eater is an autobiographical account by Thomas de Quincey of his addiction to opium and its effect on his life.  It was first published in 1821 by London Magazine in two monthly editions and brought fame and notoriety to de Quincey virtually overnight as much for its style as its subject matter. It was released in book form the following year and substantially revised years later for an 1856 edition.  The book is organized in two parts, with Part I, Preliminary Confessions, recounting his childhood and youth and the factors the led to his use of laudanum, a mixture of opium and alcohol.  Part II is further divided in to three parts: The Pleasures of Opium, which narrates his early and largely favorable experience; Introduction to the Pains of Opium, a second chapter of autobiography covering youth to maturity; and The Pains of Opium, which recounts the extremes of his usage and debilitating physical consequences such as insomnia, nightmares, visions, and physical irregularities. De Quincey was criticized for dwelling overmuch on the pleasures and not enough on the pains, but, in fact, his narrative on the pains of the drug is substantially longer.  He employed a style he called “impassioned prose” that attempted to convey the intensity, expansiveness, and the comforting properties of the experience.  Confessions is often cited as the first “addiction memoir” and dominated views on the effects of the drug for several generations before the advent of more systematic studies.

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