Elizabeth’s Chamber
Frank Kermode, 9 May 1991
The Infection of Thomas De Quincey: A Psychopathology of Imperialism
by John Barrell.
Yale, 235 pp., £18.95, May 1991,0 300 04932 3 Show More
by John Barrell.
Yale, 235 pp., £18.95, May 1991,
“... British punishment of blowing ‘natives’ away by tying the malefactor over the mouth of a cannon and firing it – a practice, as one of the soldiers testified, that at first sight or hearing may seem pretty gruesome, but you soon get used to it. He promises and delivers ‘prurience’, makes his jokes, and in general carries one along by high ... ”