The English Mail-Coach

"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," [Judson S. Lyon, "Thomas De Quincey", New York, Twayne, 1969; pp. 63, 76.] it first appeared in 1849 in "Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine", in the October (Part I) and December (Parts II and III) issues.

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 (in the author's often opium-tinged perceptions). With many digressions (on subjects ranging from Chaucer's poetry to a comparison of the River Thames with the Mississippi), De Quincey discusses the "grandeur and power" of the mail-coach ride; prior to the invention of the railroad, the mail coach represented the ultimate in transportation, in speed and force and controlled energy. Perhaps the most memorable and frequently-cited portion of Part I is De Quincey's comparison of one veteran mail-coachman to a crocodile. The crocodile-coachman's pretty granddaughter is memorialized as "Fanny of the Bath Road."
**The concluding portion of Part I is set apart under the subtitle "Going Down with Victory," and relates the author's sensations as the mail coaches spread news of English victories in the Napoleonic Wars across England — though simultaneously spreading grief, as women learn the fates of men lost in battle.
*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. The driver fell asleep and the massive coach nearly collided with a gig bearing a young couple.
*Part III, "Dream Fugue, Founded on the Preceding Theme of Sudden Death," is devoted to De Quincey's opium dreams and reveries that elaborated on the elements of Parts I and II, the mail coaches, the near accident, national victory and grief. Beginning with a quotation from "Paradise Lost" and a clarion "Tumultuosissimamente", the author introduces his theme of sudden death, and relates five dreams or visions of intense and exalted emotion and radiant language.
**I — At sea, a great English man-of-war encounters a graceful pinnace filled with young women, including one mysterious, recurring, archetypal figure from the narrator's visionary experience.
**II — In a storm at sea, the man-of-war nearly collides with a frigate, the mysterious woman clinging among its shrouds.
**III — At dawn, the narrator follows the woman along a beach, only to see her overwhelmed by shifting sands.
**IV — The narrator finds himself borne with others in a "triumphal car," racing miles through the night as "restless anthems, and Te Deums reverberated from the choirs and orchestras of earth." The "secret word" — "Waterloo and Recovered Christendom!" — passes before them. The car enters an enormous cosmic cathedral; with three blasts from a Dying Trumpeter, the mysterious female reappears with a spectre of death and her "better angel," his face hidden in his wings.
**V — With "heart-shattering music" from the "golden tubes of the organ," the cathedral is filled with re-awakened "Pomps of life." The living and the dead sing to God, and the woman enters "the gates of the golden dawn...."
*A "Postscript" concludes the whole and provides a conceptual frame for "This little paper," the unique literary artifact that preceeds it. [Philip Van Doren Stern, ed., " Selected Writings of Thomas De Quincey", New York, Modern Library/Random House, 1949; pp. 913-81.]

"The English Mail-Coach" is one of De Quincey's endeavors at writing what he called "impassioned prose," like his "Confessions of an English Opium-Eater" and "Suspiria de Profundis". De Quincey had originally intended "The English Mail-Coach" to be one part of the "Suspiria".

Its literary quality and its unique nature have made "The English Mail-Coach" a central focus of De Quincey scholarship and criticism. [Calvin S. Brown, Jr., "The Musical Structure of De Quincey's 'Dream-Fugue'," "The Musical Quarterly", Vol. 24 No. 3 (July 1938), pp. 341-50.] [Robin Jarvis, "The Glory of Motion: De Quincey, Travel, and Romanticism," "Yearbook of English Studies", Vol. 34 (2004), pp. 74-87.] [V. A. De Luca, "Thomas De Quincey: the Prose of Vision", Toronto, University of Toronto Press, 1980; pp. 96-116.] [Robert Lance Snyder, ed., "Thomas De Quincey Bicentennial Studies", Norman, OK, University of Oklahoma Press, 1985; see especially pp. 20-33 and 287-304.] [David Sundelson, "Evading the Crocodile: De Quincey's "The English Mail-Coach"," "Psychocultural Review", Vol. 1 (1977), p. 10.]

References

External links

*Entry on " [http://books.google.com/books?id=NLFPAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA386&dq=%22english+mail+coach%22+1849#PPA386,M1 The English Mail Coach] " in The Encyclopedia Americana"
* [http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/6359 Full text] at Project Gutenberg