1785-1859. English author, whose works 
include Confessions of an English Opium-Eater 
1821 and the essays `On the Knocking at the 
Gate in Macbeth' 1823 and `On Murder 
Considered as One of the Fine Arts' 1827. He 
was a friend of the poets Wordsworth and 
Coleridge. Born in Manchester, de Quincey ran 
away from school there to wander and study in 
Wales. He then went to London, where he lived 
in extreme poverty but with the constant
companionship of the young orphan Ann, of
whom he writes in the Confessions. In 1803 he
was reconciled to his guardians and was sent
to university at Oxford, where his opium
habit began. In 1809 he settled with the
Wordsworths and Coleridge in the Lake
District. He moved to Edinburgh 1828, where
he eventually died. De Quincey's work had a
powerful influence on Baudelaire and Poe
among others.