[Manchester Grammar School and Oxford University: Three Fragments]

De Quincey’s autobiographical essays dealing with Oxford appeared in February, June and August 1835, it is likely that these fragments were composed in late 1834 or early 1835. They are grouped together because of the obvious connections between them, and are ordered for coherence of content rather than by chronology. Two page proofs in the Cornell University Library, headed ‘Autobiography Of An English Opium-Eater—OXFORD’ and numbered 251 and 252. This page numbering perhaps indicates that they were initially intended to form part of the April 1835 number of Tait’s, where such numbers would fall. However, the material on the sheets is discontinuous and has two abrupt breaks where space is left and text obviously missing, besides an arbitrary line-break after ‘education’. Many would be the abortive efforts, left inchoate and imperfect, of ambition in humble English life; many the unfinished beginnings, and much the waste of time and money upon foundations laid to no ultimate purpose.