Confessions of an English Opium-Eater

#498
Title: Confessions of an English Opium-Eater
Author: Thomas de Quincey
Publisher: Halcyon House
Year: n.d. (orig. 1821)
228 pages (in edition read)

Read this not for its literary merits, but as an attempt at an empirical approach to the use of opium, even though de Quincey does not admit the legitimacy of experiences other than his own. From a contemporary psychopharmacological perspective, I note that de Quincey took opium (laudanum) for pain, which may account for his assertion that opium is not intoxicating--opiates don't tend to cause euphoria when they are actually relieving pain. The narration is so discreet at times as to be tediously impenetrable.