In Curtis Perry’s article “Piranesi’s Prison: Thomas De Quincey and the Failure of Autobiography, Perry argues that in order to get a full version of De Quincey’s autobiography we must look outward to his other works; since, Perry claims that De Quincey’s works (perhaps due to his opium addiction) are much like the confusing muddle of the Piranesi paintings that De Quincey critically admires. Perry breaks up his argument by first looking at Confessions of an English Opium Eater, then he moves onto “The Household Wreck”, and finishes by looking at Suspiria de Profundis; despite the fact, that one of these works is fiction Perry argues that they all fit together to give a full picture of De Quincey’s autobiography that we do not fully receive
