An essential aspect of autobiography is the writer's authority in telling the story. Thomas De Quincey believes he has this authority with his work Confessions of an English Opium Eater. He writes about his personal experience of taking opium in a two-part series. This experience is what De Quincey believes gives him the authority to talk about opium and its effects on the “opium eater.” The title of his work, however, demonstrates that De Quincey does not have the credibility to discuss the opium issue because the title is misleading. Opium is taken injected or smoked or drunk, not eaten. By presenting the work with a misleading title, De Quincey presents the idea that he does not have the authority to write about the effects of opium, whether he knows it or not, because he himself deludes himself about its negative effects. Confessions of an Opium -Eater begins with a false representation of the work: it is an experiment, almost scientific. He finds his account "not merely interesting, but, to a large extent, useful and instructive" (De Quincey 1). He hopes that by telling his findings to the public, they can be “instructive” about how people will choose to deal with opium (De Quincey 1). De Quincey does not possess the authority to present his research in this way, because he is a scholar and not a scientist. He subtitles the story as “an excerpt from the life of a scholar” (De Quincey 1). Therefore, it is strange that De Quincey chooses to begin his confessions with a scientific tone. Furthermore, De Quincey begins his account of events with the phrase “useful and instructive” and then states that he will present both the positive and negative effects of the drug (De Quincey 1). He, however, emphasizes the uses... halfway through the paper... he begins the story in a scientific tone, stating that he will discuss the positive and negative effects of opium use. He, however, does not fully describe the negative aspects. During times of danger caused by constant opium consumption, De Quincey still sees benefits, such as being in a happier state than if he had not started taking opium. Through pain, find bliss. This refusal to acknowledge the harms of opium leads to his inability to represent them as he said he would. De Quincey loses credibility in discussing the effects of opium. His work is neither a confession nor a story of opium consumption. De Quincey wrote a book on the benefits of opium, revealing that he is addicted to the drug, although he, the autobiographer, is blind to this fact. Works Cited De Quincey, Thomas. Confessions of an English Opium Eater. New York: Oxford University Press, 2008.