Thomas De Quincey (1785-1859) - photo 1
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Thomas De Quincey (1785-1859)

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£ 2 772
Auction dateClassic
15.12.2023 11:00UTC +01:00
Auctioneer
CHRISTIE'S
Event location
United Kingdom, London
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ID 1108957
Lot 158 | Thomas De Quincey (1785-1859)
Thomas De Quincey (1785-1859)
Autograph letter to Emily De Quincey, n.p. [Edinburgh], n.d. [?1856]
Eight pages, 114 x 185mm, two bifolia, including several lines of cancellations. Provenance: Sotheby's, 18 December 1986, lot 47.

‘Vol. V is on the point of closing, viz. The Confession. It is almost rewritten; and there cannot be much doubt that here and there it is enlivened, and so far improved. To justify the enormous labour it has cost me, most certainly it ought to be improved’. Discussing his doubts on the reception on the revised edition of Confessions of an English Opium Eater, ‘And yet, reviewing the volume as a whole now that I can look back…greatly I doubt whether many readers will not prefer it in its original fragmentary state…A doubt had arise whether…I could count upon bringing together enough of the Suspiria (yet unpublished)…to enlarge the volume’. Comparing against the work of Alexander Pope, ‘Pope, you know,…published his Rape of the Lock as a mere aerial sketch…But afterwards…he buckramed and crinolined his graceful sketch with an elaborate machinery of Gnomes and Sylphs…Yet, after all, there was in the original sketchy and playful bagatelle…an attraction which has perished in the brocaded massiveness and voluminous draperies of this ceremonial mythology’. Continuing, ‘Such is my feeling. Such was Addison’s…yet the friends of Pope affected to think…Addison purely hypocritical and hazarded…that Pope might be thus misled into suppressing his exquisite little gem of art under its most perfect manifestation. How thoroughly sincere Addison might be.’ Concluding, ‘I calculate your dander is rising against this specimen of dissertationising…this is an exceptional epistle, preparing…you for a practical questions, viz. a thoughtful consideration of the remodelled ‘Confessions’ as more fit, or less fit…to take its place among works addressing themselves to the popular mind. Such a purpose…excuses a certain amount of lecturing’. De Quincey also notes that he expects to be ready to return home at the end of November, and relates to his anxiety to the claim against him for one hundred guineas by Miss Miller, one of his former landladies, to whom he declared he has paid 10 guineas in the last 3 months, ‘and to Mrs. Wilson here on my own acct. 18 guineas’.
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