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Welcome to Celebrate Poe - Episode 321 - DeQuincy, Baudelaire, and Poe - Part Three)

I hope you listened to the previous episode that deals with Thomas De Quincy and his 1821 autobiographical work "Confessions of an English Opium-Eater.

But before we go any further, I wan to try and clear something up. An opium-eater is not actually someone who eats opium, but rather a person who uses opium as a recreational drug or an opium addict. The term "opium-eater" was popularized by Thomas De Quincey in his work "Confessions of an English Opium-Eater”. In reality, De Quincey consumed opium in the form of laudanum, which is a tincture of opium dissolved in alcohol. This liquid preparation was widely used in the 19th century to treat various ailments and was easily available without a prescription. What could possibly go wrong?

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