ABSTRACT
Drugs in Thomas De Quincey Confessions of an English Opium-Eater are simultaneously poison and cure, public and private, paradise and prison, natural and artificial. In 'The Rhetoric of Drugs', Jacques Derrida explores the political implications of addiction. In the Confessions, De Quincey conservatism—basically 'imperialist, xenophobic, and defensive'—is well to the fore. Had De Quincey stayed in Edinburgh and continued to write for Black-wood's, for example, it seems highly improbable that he would have given London such prominence in his Confessions. Blackwood's had a broad reach, but it rooted itself in Edinburgh's rich literary, political, and cultural traditions. De Quincey fraternizes with Etonians, Oxonians, and aristocrats, and takes a sometimes intoxicated pleasure in roaming amongst the working class. But he also speaks out on behalf of 'plain human nature, in its humblest and most homely apparel' with an immediacy and compassion that clearly anticipates Charles Dickens.
