In 1852, Thomas de Quincey, who by then had just turned sixty-seven, began preparing the first edition of his complete works. Unlike his contemporaries, de Quincey virtually nothing had been published in book form; all his work was scattered literally hundreds of periodicals. Sketches of childhood and adolescence compiles unpublished autobiographical texts-the most up to date in Spanish that make the spiritual journey that makes Thomas de Quincey from having self-awareness glides slowly until adolescence to that cause their flight status London and the beginning of his addiction to opium. As always with Quincey, the most exciting is the most terrible: the descriptions in these texts of the death of his little sister, his father, or the tragic story of his brother Pink; but there is also one of Quincey here more rare and extraordinary, charged moments of an overflowing humor and intelligence to reflect on his own life: a pre melancholy dQuincey opium eater. The result is an intimate account that revolves around a question that, in fact, begins one of the chapters of this book: "When does a child become man?". De Quincey answers from his own experience, as well as from his fascination with the lives of others.