Klosterheim, or, The masque, 1832

the long version

"Written halfway between Confessions of an English opium-eater (1822) and the great, but fragmentary, Suspiria de profundis of the 1840s, Klosterheim is ostensibly a gothic fantasy in the manner of Ann Radcliffe, set in Germany during the Thirty Years' War. But De Quincey's gothic has a particular function, unlocking a door into the opium-taker's world of illusion and dream. He is writing at a period of desperate need and continuing addiction, and writing very well. Coleridge claimed to have read nothing since Quentin Durward that 'would compare in interest with Klosterheim', adding that De Quincey achieves a 'purity of style and idiom' to which Scott does not aspire."--BOOK JACKET.