Guilty Thing: A Life of Thomas De Quincey Paperback – 6 Jul 2015

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Review ------ A writer's writer who will no doubt inspire her own cult following (Amanda Foreman) Stunning . A brilliant, giddy-making portrait . Wilson's narrative [has] a wonderfully hallucinatory effect . Energetic and wonderfully compelling (Kathryn Hughes Mail on Sunday) In connecting the architecture of De Quincey's wild, opium-fuelled mind with physical surroundings, Wilson provides a handrail through the pandemonium and isolation. He emerges from her book a sympathetic but irresponsible obsessive. Wilson has successfully brought De Quincey out from under the shadow of his contemporaries. He stands before us deeply flawed . But he was also a dreamer of the best dreams in literature (Ruth Scurr Daily Telegraph) A richly intelligent and well-informed study, which will surely become the favoured one of our time (Financial Times) Tremendous . A seamless, stirring, sublime biography, which takes you to the heart, or rather the head, of the opium-eater. Whether you are more repelled or mesmerised by him, it's hard to dispute that De Quincey was the most complex and unpredictable writer of his times (Evening Standard) Multilayered and wonderfully inful (John Walsh Sunday Times) A book that captures in both form and focus something of its subject's disorienting, brilliant unpredictability . There are plenty of stylistic fireworks worthy of De Quincey here. Comets whiz through the pages, as do snippets of poetry, narrative diversions and gruesome details of the various contemporary murders by which De Quincey was fascinated . The result is a great, complicated book, in which a host of competing ideas and images jostle for supremacy (Observer) Guilty Thing brings triumphantly into focus a life racked by opium's insidious effects . Beautifully crafted, Frances Wilson's narrative sets up patterns, mirrors and doublings that make multiple intersections between De Quincey's inner and outer worlds. An impressive contribution to literary biography, her book as to the most 'De Quinceyan' account of De Quincey we are likely to see (Literary Review) Wilson is forensic about the terrors lurking in De Quincey's imagination . Wilson's quirky, urgent biography, which is clearly steeped in extensive knowledge of the period, is an essential guide to this remarkable drug addict (Daisy Goodwin The Times) By turns amused, appalled and empathetic, Wilson paints such a riveting multi-tonal portrait that one ends up with a strong regard for De Quincey's rare vision but at the same time an absolute certainty one would not invite him to dinner . She beautifully binds and catches us in the web of his imagination . In her pursuit, Wilson often catches decisively this most elusive character, and the chase is exhilarating (Hermione Eyre Spectator) Book Description ---------------- The life of Thomas De Quincey - a dynamic and unique biography of the most mysterious member of the Wordsworth circle and the last of the Romantics.