Beginning with a discussion of Levana, the ancient Roman goddess of childbirth, De Quincey imagines three companions for her: Mater Lachrymarum, Our Lady of Tears; Mater Suspiriorum, Our Lady of Sighs; and Mater Tenebrarum, Our Lady of Darkness.

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The Suspiria is a collection of prose poems, or what De Quincey called “impassioned prose,” erratically written and published starting in 1854. Each Suspiria is a short essay written in reflection of the opium dreams De Quincey would experience over the course of his lifetime addiction, and they are considered by some critics to be some of the finest examples of prose poetry in all of English literature. De Quincey originally planned them as a sequel of sorts to his Confessions of an English Opium-Eater, but the first set was published separately in Blackwood’s Magazine in the spring and summer of that 1854. De Quincey then published a revised version of those first Suspiria, along with several new ones, in his collected works. During his life he kept a master list of titles of the Suspiria he planned on writing, and completed several more before his death; those that survived time and fire were published posthumously in 1891.

A book about opium usage and the effects of addiction on the authors life.

This clear print title is set in Tiresias 13pt font for easy reading

Thomas De Quincey was a prominent English essayist and journalist in the early 19th century. De Quincey's most famous work is Confessions of an English Opium-Eater which is considered one of the first works of addiction literature. Confessions of an English Opium-Eater, which was published in 1821, is still widely read today

Famed for his autobiographical Confessions of an English Opium Eater, De Quincey extended his sensational accounts of drug addiction with the brief essays of Suspiria de Profundis ("Sighs from the Depths).