Debt and addiction

I knew that I was onto a good thing with this book before the page numbers were even out of roman numerals. Describing the wealth of new material that has come to light in the three decades or so since the last biography of Thomas De Quincey, Robert Morrison men- tions the areas in which it has enriched our understanding:

. . . his enduring sorrow over the loss of his sister Elizabeth, his masochistic desire for humiliation; his association with prostitutes; his pursuit of, and subsequent alienation from, Wordsworth and Coleridge; his struggle with drugs and alcohol . . . his horrendous battles with debt; his imprisonment in Edinburgh gaols . . .

This was a lively life, and this is a lively Life. Even as a child, when De Quincey was forced to play rather than read, he preferred to play with gunpowder. He was getting drunk by the age of seven.