"I here present you, courteous reader, with the record of a remarkable period in my life: according to my application of it, I trust that it will prove not merely an interesting record, but in a considerable degree useful and instructive." So Thomas de Quincey begins his shocking autobiography, the "Confessions of an English Opium-Eater". Originally published anonymously in two parts in the "London Magazine" in 1821, it is a gripping account of one...