By Thomas De Quincey

His thirty perilous years of drug addiction both eased his considerable social anxieties and created new, devastating mental and physical torments. Throughout this time he fought a constant struggle against the incapacity and torpor that opium - then as readily available as asprin - incurred. This agonizing confliction is at the heart of the Confessions. De Quincey's powerful evocation of his drug-induced experience gives an insight into the degeneration of a brilliant mind - and the fascination of opium for it.

227 pages, 5 x 8