The following narration of the personal experiences of the writer is submitted to the reader at the request of numerous friends, who are of opinion that it will be interesting as well as beneficial to the public.

The reader is forewarned that in the perusal of the succeeding pages, he will not find the incomparable music of De Quincey’s prose, or the easy-flowing and harmonious graces of his inimitable style, as presented in the “Confessions of an English Opium Eater;” but a dull and trudging narrative of solid facts, disarrayed of all flowers of speech, and delivered by a mind, the faculties of which are bound up and baked hard by the searing properties of opium—a mind without elasticity or fertility—a mind prostrate. The only excuse for writing the book in this mental condition was, and is, that the prospect of ever being able to write under more favorable circumstances appeared too doubtful to rely upon; I felt that I had better now do the best I could, lest my mouth be sealed forever with my message undelivered. The result is before the reader in the following chapters; his charitable judgment of which I have entreated in the body of the work. The introductory part of the book, that relating to my imprisonment, is inserted for my own justification.

The Author.