DE QUENCEY
SIR,—In his study of De Quincey's drug-taking Mr. Dan Jacobson confines his attention to the two ver- sions of Confessions of an English Opium-Eater given in my edition. He does not mention that this edition reprints—for the first time in an English edition—the original version of Suspiria de Profundis, which De Quincey himself rated even above the Confessions as his most important work and which refutes Mr. Jacobson's assertion that De Quincey 'never really establishes the connection' between 'what happened to him in his boyhood' and 'what became of him as a man.' This presentation of the Suspirid de Pro- fundis is the more important because other editors have followed David Masson in presenting as the Suspiria only those fragments which De Quincey omitted from his 'Autobiographic Sketches' when assembling his collected works.—Yours faithfully,
MALCOLM ELWIN
Vent/on Sands, Georgehani, Nr. Brawiton, N. Devon
[Dan Jacobson writes: 'I am sorry that I omitted to mention the Suspiria de Prof undis; Mr. Elwin is right in drawing attention to it as a remarkable piece of writing, and we must be grateful to him for pre- senting the full text in an English edition. However, I do not feel that the Suspiria succeeds any more than the Confessions in establishing a direct causal con- nection between the events of De Quineey's childhood and his opium-taking, though it does shown again how anxious De Quincey was to make the connection.'— Editor, Spectator.]
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