Confessions of an English Opium Eater by Thomas De Quincey

I was possessed by a desire to read this after seeing these amazing illustrations, but this book isn't as horrifically fascinating as they led me to expect. I did find it very interesting, however, in terms of what it illustrated about Regency life and attitudes. There is almost none of the stigma we would associate with drug use today, and de Quincey frankly advises how best to take opium, and is actually more disposed to joke about the subject than anything else. He frankly rejects any project of moralising about it, and spends some time dismissing various myths about the drug. He insists that opium was for him a medical necessity, and details its effects in wonderfully beautiful and fascinating language. The really terrifying effects do not come into the story until the very end, and even then he takes a sort of proto-decadent delight in enumerating and describing them. It's no wonder the Baudelaire loved this book. De Quincey skips over the physical effects and concentrates on mental and psychological, and by the end, though he has stopped taking opium, it is clear that he is still quite enamoured of it as he declares 'not the opium-eater, but the opium, is the true hero of the tale; and the legitimate centre on which the interest revolves. The object was to display the marvellous agency of opium...' There is also a fascinating section where de Quincey describes his horror of Asian countries, which of course reads as shockingly racist and prejudiced today, but also offers a singular and colourful glimpse into the European ideas and attitudes towards Asia at a time when fascinations with China and Japan were sweeping in alternating waves over Europe.