Chapter 4 - The Victorians: Empire and the East

Summary

In his well-known memoir Confessions of an English Opium-Eater (1821), Thomas De Quincey seeks to disprove popular perceptions about the effects of opium. As he observes: “It is not so much affirmed as taken for granted, by all who ever mention opium, formally or incidentally, that it does, or can produce intoxication.”¹ Taking issue with this assumption, De Quincey states: “Now reader, assure yourself, meo periculo, that no quantity of opium ever did, or could intoxicate.”² Instead, according to De Quincey, it is wine that “disorders the mental faculties.”³ What is significant about these statements is not so much the information they convey about the somnolent qualities of opium vis-à-vis wine as the confidence and authority with which De Quincey writes them. He evidently writes from experience and familiarity with opium. He writes with the conviction of someone who knows of what he writes: “now reader, assure yourself …” Indeed, given the autobiographical thrust of Confessions, which details De Quincey’s lifelong addiction to opium, he does seem uniquely qualified to dispense advice on opium. He of all people seems best suited to judge the relative merits as it were of “Turkish opium” and “East Indian opium.