Confessions of an English Opium-Eater launched a fascination with drug use that has continued to our day. Here De Quincey invents recreational drug taking, but he also details both the lurid nightmares that beset him in the depths of his addiction as well as his humiliatingly futile attempts to renounce the drug. Suspiria de Profundis centers on the profound afflictions of De Quincey's childhood, and examines the powerful and often paradoxical relationship between drugs and human creativity. In The English Mail-Coach, the tragedies of De Quincey's past are played out with horrifying repetitiveness against a backdrop of Britain as a Protestant and an imperial power.

Robert Morrison's Introduction considers opium use in the nineteenth century, the confession genre, and the three works in detail, focusing on De Quincey's centrality to his own age and enduring relevance to our own. Morrison also provides detailed and comprehensive annotation, an extensive chronology of De Quincey's life, and the most up-to-date and thorough bibliography on the autobiographical works. Finally, the book features three appendices containing manuscript material related to the three texts, never before available in paperback.

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