Confessions of an English Opium-Eater, By Thomas de Quincey

Anyone who has read Robert Morrison's illuminating biography The English Opium-Eater will acknowledge his credentials as editor of this startling work, both revelatory and nightmarish.

De Quincey "launched a fascination with drug use and abuse" that formed an unlikely link between writers disparate as Dickens, Wilde, Aleister Crowley and the Thompsons (Francis and Hunter S.).

He may not be the first to write about opium but few have done it better, especially in his discussion of the high.