Thomas De Quincey collection
Overview
Collection of letters from various sources written by Thomas De Quincey (1785-1859) or daughter Florence (De Quincey) Smith.
Dates
- Creation: 1838-1854, undated
Creator
- De Quincey, Thomas, 1785-1859 (Person)
- Smith, Florence De Quincey (Person)
Conditions Governing Access
No access restrictions.
Conditions Governing Use
Spencer Library staff may determine use restrictions dependent on the physical condition of manuscript materials.
Biography of Thomas De Quincey (1785-1859)
Thomas De Quincey was born in Manchester, Lancashire, England, running away from his family at the age of 17 to first Wales and then London. After reconciling with his family in 1803, he entered Worcester College, Oxford. In 1804 he took his first dose of opium to relieve pain, and by 1813 he was an opium addict.
De Quincey was an early admirer of Lyrical Ballads and became friends with its authors, William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge. While De Quincey wrote voluminously, including essays on biography, history, economics, and German metaphysics, he was not widely published. His best known work continues to be Confessions of an English Opium-Eater (1821).
De Quincey married Margaret Simpson in 1817. The couple had 8 children before her death in 1837.
[Information retrieved from Encyclopedia Britannica, "Thomas De Quincey," https://www.britannica.com/biography/Thomas-De-Quincey.]
Extent
3 folders
Language of Materials
English
Physical Location
MS P91
Immediate Source of Acquisition
Items in folder 1: gift, William P. Albrecht, 1971. Folder 2: Purchase, Benjamin's Collector no. 755 (1956?). Folder 3: unknown, but numbered 331 in fuchsia and 83 in pencil.
Subject
- Title
- Guide to the Thomas De Quincey Collection
- Subtitle
- Thomas De Quincey collection
- Author
- Finding aid prepared by alh, 1990. Finding aid encoded by mwh, 2020.
- Date
- 2020
- Description rules
- Describing Archives: A Content Standard
- Language of description
- Finding aid written in English.
- Finding aid permalink
- http://hdl.handle.net/10407/1706484667
- Preferred citation
-
Thomas De Quincey collection, MS P90, Kenneth Spencer Research Library, University of Kansas
Repository Details
Part of the University of Kansas. Kenneth Spencer Research Library Repository