Ziolkowski, Theodore, ‘A Portrait of the Artist as a Criminal’, in Dimensions of the Modern Novel: German Texts and European Contexts (Princeton, 1969), 289–331.
Fiction and Poetry
Ackroyd, Peter, Dan Leno and the Limehouse Golem (London, 1994).
—— Hawksmoor (London, 1985).
Kerr, Philip, A Philosophical Investigation (London, 1992).
Long, Gabrielle Margaret Vere [as Joseph Shearing], ‘Blood and Thunder’, in Orange Blossoms (London, 1938).
Nabokov, Vladimir, Despair (New York, 1966).
Sinclair, Iain, Lud Heat (London, 1975; repr. in Lud Heat and Suicide Bridge, London, 1998).
Further Reading in Oxford World’s Classics
De Quincey, Thomas, Confessions of an English Opium-Eater and Other Writings, ed. Grevel Lindop.
Doyle, Arthur Conan, The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, ed. Richard Lancelyn Green.
—— The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, ed. Christopher Roden.
Hogg, James, The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner, ed. John Carey.
Le Fanu, Joseph Sheridan, In a Glass Darkly, ed. Robert Tracy.
Poe, Edgar Allan, Selected Tales, ed. David Van Leer.
The Vampyre and Other Tales of the Macabre, ed. Robert Morrison and Chris Baldick.
Wilde, Oscar, The Picture of Dorian Gray, ed. Isobel Murray.
A CHRONOLOGY OF THOMAS DE QUINCEY
1785
Born (15 August) in Manchester, son of Thomas Quincey, textile importer, and Elizabeth Penson.
1790
Death of his sister Jane, aged 3.
1792
Death of his sister Elizabeth, aged 9.
1793
Death of his father.
1796
Moves to Bath and enters Bath Grammar School. His mother takes the name ‘De Quincey’.
1799
Enters Winkfield School, Wiltshire. Reads Wordsworth and Coleridge’s Lyrical Ballads, which he later describes as ‘the greatest event in the unfolding of my own mind’.
1800
Translation from Horace’s Twenty-Second Ode wins third prize in a contest, and is published in the Monthly Preceptor. Accidentally meets George III at Frogmore. Summer holiday in Ireland. Enters Manchester Grammar School.
1801
Spends summer in Everton, near Liverpool, where he meets William Roscoe, James Currie, and other Whig intellectuals.
1802
Flees from Manchester Grammar School. Wanders in North Wales and then spends five months penniless and hungry on the streets of London.
1803
Reconciled with his mother and guardians. Spends another summer in Everton. Reads gothic fiction voraciously. Deepening admiration for Coleridge, whom he begins to think ‘the greatest man that has ever appeared’. Writes fan letter to Wordsworth, and the two begin a correspondence. Enters Worcester College, Oxford.
1804
Begins occasional use of opium. Meets Charles Lamb.
1805
Travels to the Lake District at the invitation of Wordsworth, but loses his nerve and turns back without meeting the poet.
1806
Travels again to the Lake District to meet Wordsworth, and again loses his nerve.
1807
Meets Coleridge. Gives him £300 under the polite pretence of a ‘loan’. Escorts Coleridge’s family to the Lake District and meets Wordsworth at Grasmere.
1808
Sees Coleridge daily and assists him with his lectures for the Royal Institution, on Poetry and Principles of Taste. Bolts from Oxford midway through his final examinations and does not receive his degree. Introduced to John Wilson, the future ‘Christopher North’ of Blackwood’s Magazine. The two become close friends.
1809
Supervises the printing of Wordsworth’s pamphlet on The Convention of Cintra, and contributes a lengthy ‘Postscript on Sir John Moore’s Letters’. Moves to Grasmere, where he rents Dove Cottage, the former home of the Wordsworths.
1810
Enters period of greatest intimacy with Wordsworth and Coleridge. Reads manuscript of Wordsworth’s Prelude. With Wilson and Alexander Blair, contributes the ‘Letter of Mathetes’ to Coleridge’s metaphysical newspaper, The Friend.
1812
Enters the Middle Temple briefly to read for the Bar.
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