19488,26,10 B 21 Jan. 1898. HARVARD UNIVERSITY LIBRARY SEP 26 1955 SEVENTH THOUSAND PREFATORY NOTE. FOR matters of fact in the following pages the chief authorities are the collective edition of De Quincey's works in sixteen volumes, published by Messrs. A. & C. Black of Edinburgh, and the Life of De Quincey in two volumes by Mr. H. A. Page (London, John Hogg & Co., 1877). This last, the only extensive and complete Life of De Quincey in the language, contains a large quantity of biographical information supplied to Mr. Page by the family of De Quincey, and by friends and correspondents of his, much of it in the form of interesting letters and papers never before made public. Such information had long been desired in vain; and till the appearance of Mr. Page's work little more was known about De Quincey's life than had been revealed by himself in the autobiographical portions of his writings. While, however, Mr. Page's work and those autobiographical writings of De Quincey have been the main authorities for facts and dates, there have been miscellaneous gleanings from other quarters. The chronological list of De Quincey's magazine-writings drawn up by Mr. H. G. Bohn, and inserted in the article " Quincey, De" in his edition of Lowndes's Bibliographer's Manual, has been of much use; and among smaller memoirs consulted I may mention the article on De Quincey in the current edition |