Synopsis
The five essays presented here—Rhetoric, Style, Language, Conversation, and Greek Literature—were published together for the first time in The Collected Writings of Thomas De Quincey in 1889–1890. Frederick Burwick brings the essays together again in this volume, introducing them by tracing the sources and development of a belletristic theory of rhetoric, which he says “is one of the most original, and for a few critics, the most puzzling of the nineteenth century.” Burwick makes the edition complete with a comprehensive index and a selected bibliography.
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About the Author
Despite being born into a wealthy family, Thomas De Quincey had a difficult childhood. He was forced to move quite often, and his father passed away when he was only eight years old. He attended several prestigious schools before running away when he was seventeen, returning home several months later. De Quincy studied at Oxford University for a short while, but he soon became addicted to opium, and dropped out in 1807; he would suffer from this addiction for the rest of his life. In 1821, De Quincey s struggles inspired him to write Confessions of an English Opium-Eater, which was published in London Magazine and served as a professional breakthrough for him. After his wife passed away in 1837, De Quincey s addiction became dramatically worse and his finances suffered as a result. He managed to write several more books, including a second memoir, Suspiria de Profundis, before passing away in 1859.
Frederick Burwick is a Research Professor at the University of California, Los Angeles. The author and editor of thirty-two books and one hundred and fifty articles, he has been named Distinguished Scholar by the British Academy (1992) and by the Keats-Shelley Association (1998). The International Conference on Romanticism presented him a Lifetime Achievement Award (2013). He is editor of The Oxford Handbook of Samuel Taylor Coleridge (2009) and general editor of the three-volume Encyclopedia of Romantic Literature (2012). Recent monographs include Romantic Drama: Acting and Reacting (Cambridge University Press, 2009), Playing to the Crowd: London Popular Theatre, 1780 1830 (2011), and, co-authored with Manushag Powell, British Pirates in Print and Performance (2015).
David Potter is Francis W. Kelsey Collegiate Professor of Greek and Roman History, Arthur F. Thurnau Professor, and Professor of Greek and Latin at the University of Michigan. Recognized internationally as an authority on the Roman empire, he is the author of many scholarly articles and books.
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