Bøker av Thomas de Quincey

The condition of the Roman Emperors has never yet been fully appreciated; nor has it been sufficiently perceived in what respects it was absolutely unique. -- Thomas De Quincey, The CaesarsOriginally published in 1853, this intriguing volume incisively examines an era of the ancient past known as "The Caesars." With its reign-by-reign account of the power holders of the "imperial purple," it serves easily as a companion text for classes in classical history.The Caesars weaves a compelling narrative of the rise and fall of the Roman emperors, complete with an historical timeline and dynamic portraits of the major events, influences, and supremacy of ancient Rome.AUTHOR BIO:Thomas De Quincey (1785-1859) was born Manchester, England, and was educated at schools in Bath and Winkfield but left Oxford without taking a degree. He eventually settled in London, where, in 1807, he became close friends of the romantic writer Taylor Colderidge as well as of William Wordsworth, whom De Quincey greatly admired. De Quincey's influence was later seen in the works of Edgar Allan Poe and Charles Baudelaire.

Purchase one of 1st World Library's Classic Books and help support our free internet library of downloadable eBooks. Visit us online at www.1stWorldLibrary.ORG - - The condition of the Roman Emperors has never yet been fully appreciated; nor has it been sufficiently perceived in what respects it was absolutely unique. There was but one Rome: no other city, as we are satisfied by the collation of many facts, either of ancient or modern times, has ever rivalled this astonishing metropolis in the grandeur of magnitude; and not many - if we except the cities of Greece, none at all - in the grandeur of architectural display. Speaking even of London, we ought in all reason to say - the Nation of London, and not the City of London; but of Rome in her palmy days, nothing less could be said in the naked severity of logic. A million and a half of souls - that population, apart from any other distinctions, is per se for London a justifying ground for such a classification; à fortiori, then, will it belong to a city which counted from one horn to the other of its mighty suburbs not less than four millions of inhabitants [Footnote: Concerning this question - once so fervidly debated, yet so unprofitably for the final adjudication, and in some respects, we may add, so erroneously - on a future occasion.] at the very least, as we resolutely maintain after reviewing all that has been written on that much vexed theme, and very probably half as many more. Republican Rome had her prerogative tribe; the earth has its prerogative city; and that city was Rome.

Thomas De Quincey (1785-1859) described his adolescent discovery of the Lyrical Ballads of Wordsworth and Coleridge as 'an absolute revelation of untrodden worlds, teeming with power and beauty'. The admiring letter he sent to Wordsworth led to friendships with him, Coleridge and Robert Southey. Relations soured over time, though, as De Quincey's opium addiction and debts increased. Following Coleridge's death in 1834, De Quincey began writing his 'Lake Reminiscences', published serially in Tait's Magazine up to 1840. Candid, occasionally bitter, and highlighting flaws such as Coleridge's plagiarism, the recollections offended the surviving poets and their families, yet these vivid portraits attract continued scholarly interest for both the light shed on the subjects and on the author himself. The collected essays, reissued in this 1863 printing of the 1862 first edition, certainly served to confirm the Lake Poets as leading figures of English Romanticism.

Confessions of an English Opium-Eater remains its author's most famous and frequently-read work and one of the period's central statements about both the power and terror of imagination. De Quincey describes the intense "pleasures" and harrowing "pains" of his opium use in lyrical and dramatic prose.

Confessions of an English Opium-Eater, Suspiria de Profundis, and 'The English Mail-Coach' are De Quincey's finest essays in autobiography, published here with three appendices containing a wealth of related manuscript material and a comprehensive introduction and notes.

'People begin to see that something more goes to the composition of a fine murder than two blockheads to kill and be killed - a knife - a purse - and a dark lane...'In this provocative and blackly funny essay, Thomas de Quincey considers murder in a purely aesthetic light and explains how practically every philosopher over the past two hundred years has been murdered - 'insomuch, that if a man calls himself a philosopher, and never had his life attempted, rest assured there is nothing in him'.Introducing Little Black Classics: 80 books for Penguin's 80th birthday. Little Black Classics celebrate the huge range and diversity of Penguin Classics, with books from around the world and across many centuries. They take us from a balloon ride over Victorian London to a garden of blossom in Japan, from Tierra del Fuego to 16th-century California and the Russian steppe. Here are stories lyrical and savage; poems epic and intimate; essays satirical and inspirational; and ideas that have shaped the lives of millions.Thomas de Quincey (1785-1859). Thomas de Quincey's Confessions and an English Opium-Eater and Other Writings is available in Penguin Classics.

WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY HOWARD MARKSOnce upon a time, opium (the main ingredient of heroin) was easily available over the chemist's counter.

"e;Thou has the keys of Paradise, oh just, subtle, and mighty opium!"e; Determined to counter the lies about opium that had been told by travellers to the Orient and the medical profession, De Quincey describes his addiction, the consciousness alteringproperties of the drug, its pleasures and its pains.