| Description Of Item | Press cutting from Macphail’s Edinburgh Ecclesiastical Journal and Literary Review, vol. XXXIII (33), published in 1862.
Extracts from a literary review of ‘Christopher North:’ a Memoir of John Wilson, written by his daughter Mrs Mary Wilson Gordon, and published in Edinburgh, 1862 (two volumes). John Wilson of Ellerey FRSE [Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh] was a Scottish advocate, literary critic and author, moral philosopher and professor at the University of Edinburgh (1820-51). He wrote for Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine under the pseudonym Christopher North.
The extracts are direct quotations from the book and relate exclusively to Thomas de Quincey (English writer, essayist, and literary critic, best known for his Confessions of an English Opium-Eater (1821)) and his friendship with John Wilson. The author recalls the beginning of Wilson and Quincey’s friendship, describes Quincey’s personality and genius, and his opium addiction and peculiar eating habits.
From the collection of Thomas Laycock. |