Thomas De Quincey

A first edition in book form of De Quincey's Confessions Of An English Opium-Eater.

• Thomas De Quincey (English).
• London: J. Moyes for Taylor and Hessey, 1822. 
• 12mo.
• Half-title, 2 pages publisher’s ads to rear, engraved bookplate to front pastedown.
• Publisher’s brown boards, housed in red cloth slip-case, contrasting black morocco title-piece to spine.

 An excellent copy in the original boards of ‘the most famous account of drug addiction in English literature’ (Norman). 

First published in the London Magazine the previous year, Confessions of an English Opium-Eater was an instant hit which brought De Quincey (1785-1859) immediate literary fame both at home and across the Atlantic. The memoir recounts De Quincey’s early life, his formative relationship with the kindly prostitute Ann of Oxford Street, and descent into (lifelong) opium addiction. This edition, the first in book form, also introduced an appendix recording De Quincey’s opium consumption over the period. 

A legendary figure, the bibliographer H.G. Bohn recalled: ‘These “Confessions” were written in a little room at the back of Mr. H.G. Bohn’s premises, No. 4, York Street, Covent Garden, where Mr. De Quincey resided, in comparative seclusion, for several years. He had previously lived in the neighbourhood of Soho Square, and for some years was a frequent visitor to the shop of Mr. Bohn’s father, then the principal dealer in German books. The writer remembers that he always seemed to speak in a kind of whisper’ (Lowndes). 

With provenance for Frank Brewer Bemis (1861-1935), bibliophile, collector of printed and manuscript poetry, and member of the Grolier Club and American Antiquarian Society. 

Frank Brewer Bemis (bookplate).