Thomas De Quincey, the First Troll

The wicked vendettas of Thomas De Quincey, the author of Confessions of an English Opium-Eater.

- James Parker

THE LETTER ARRIVED at Dove Cottage in July 1803, having traveled from its source in Liverpool down to London, and thence north again, to the Lake District. The remarkable thing, given its contents, is that it was still intact and legible—that it had not dissolved en route in a lather of literary idolatry. “Though you may find many minds more congenial with your own,” its author protested, “and therefore proportionately more worthy of your regard, you will never find any one more zealously attached to you—more full of admiration for your mental excellence and of reverential love for your moral character—more ready (I speak from my heart!) to sacrifice even his life—whenever it could have a chance of promoting your interest and happiness—than he who now bends the knee before you.”

Imagine waking up and finding that in your inbox! The recipient of these unsolicited and spam like effusions was the poet William Wordsworth. Their source was the tiny 17-year-old Thomas De Quincey: scholarly prodigy, former homeless person, superfan of Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s Lyrical Ballads, soon-to-be-infamous drug addict, and, incipiently, one of the finest and nastiest prose writers in England.