THE ENGLISH OPIUM-EATER: The Life and Times of Thomas De Quincey

  • The Century Club

Description

  • Something A Little Different, Theatre/Arts and Classes
  • Tickets from £12.00
  • Over 18
  • Tue, 31st Jan 2023 @ 18:30 - 20:30
  • 18:30 - 20:30

Thomas De Quincey the English writer, essayist, and literary critic, remains best known for his book 'Confessions of an English Opium-Eater’, yet his works run to 21 volumes  including his masterpiece “On Murder, Considered as One of the Fine Arts”. Following a troubled childhood, he ran away from school at the age of 17 to live in Georgian London. Here he found his literary niche supplying mass magazine audiences with sensational journalism – reports of murders, rapes, suicides and freak accidents. He also found love with a young prostitute named Ann who he later lost in the vast  anonymity of the city.

In this talk, biographer Frances Wilson tells the riches-to-rags story of a writer of dazzling complexity and originality whose rackety life was lived on the run. Wilson will explore this theme of De ‘Quincey’s lost girls’ and his obsession with murder that became so important in his life and work. She will also investigate the use and romanticisation of opium that came to define him.  De Quincey was thirty-six when “Confessions of an English Opium-Eater,” his sensational memoir of addiction, which was published, anonymously, in 1821. 

Frances traces these and De Quincey’s other obsessions - including that with Wordsworth and Coleridge - and describes his wide ranging influence on writers including Edgar Allen Poe, Dostoevsky, Charles Dickens, Oscar Wilde, George Orwell, and Vladimir Nabokov.

Tickets £12



Frances Wilson


Frances Wilson is an academic, critic and the author of 'Guilty Things’, the multi award winning  biography of Thomas De Quincey. She has written five other books of non fiction including, most recently, another award winning biography: Burning Man: The Ascent of D.H. Lawrence'. She teaches writing at Goldsmith's College, University of London.

Offers

Promotions

Tickets/Times

Ticket Event time Cost
Thomas De Quincey
Soho Series at the Century
18:30 - 20:30 £12.00

Location

Address

The Century Club, 61 - 63, Shaftesbury Avenue, London, W1D 6LQ

Nearest Station

Piccadilly Circus (Tube)

Organiser

A Curious Invitation

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Previous Century reviews

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Based on 6 customer reviews

  • Written by Stephen

    Rating: 5

    VERIFIED

    Visited 11 months ago
    Mind-manifesting stuff from Antique Beat and Mike Jay
  • Written by Sarah-Louise

    Rating: 5

    VERIFIED

    Visited 11 months ago
    Great event as always, wasn't keen on the interviewer but Cathi's content was excellent and provided insight into a fascinating period.
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