Thomas de Quincey

The English Mail-Coach and Joan of Arc Thomas de Quincey

The English Mail-Coach is an essay by the English author Thomas De Quincey. A "three-part masterpiece" and one of his most magnificent works. The essay is divided into three sections: Part I, "The Glory of Motion," is devoted to a lavish description of the mail coach system then in use in England, and the sensations of riding on the outside upper seats of the coaches; Part II, "The Vision of Sudden Death," deals in great detail with a near-accident that occurred one night while De Quincey, intoxicated with opium, was riding on an outside seat of a mail coach; Part III, Part III, "Dream Fugue, Founded on the Preceding Theme of Sudden Death". Thomas de Quincey was born in Manchester on the 15th of August, 1785. His father was a man of high character and great taste for literature as well as a successful man of business; he died, most unfortunately, when Thomas was quite young.