Thomas De Quincey was born in 1785 in Manchester. After running away from school, and spending time on the streets of London (a period described in Confessions of an English Opium Eater), he went to Oxford University. Here he became an admirer of the work of Wordsworth and Coleridge.

He became friendly with Wordsworth in 1808 and moved into Dove Cottage in 1809, a year after the Wordsworth family had left. He lived in the cottage for many years and married a local farmer's daughter.

He was a writer and journalist and is best known for his Confessions of an English Opium Eater, first published in 1821. This is remarkable for its exploration of the psychological effects of opium, to which De Quincey was addicted. In vivid accounts of experiences triggered by the drug, some of which occurred at Dove Cottage, he probes the sub-conscious mind and imagination.

His friendship with Wordsworth cooled over the years. Wordsworth the man could not hope to live up to the ideal De Quincey had constructed. Or, as De Quincey himself put it: 'men of extraordinary genius and force of mind are far better as objects for distant admiration than as daily companions'. The early favourable impression De Quincey had made on the family also began to fade. He made alterations to Dove Cottage, and particularly the garden, which angered and upset the Wordsworth family. Later, his journalistic accounts of the Lake Poets and their circle alienated them still further.

Mounting debts eventually forced De Quincey to leave the Lake District in search of regular work. He died in Edinburgh in 1859 and is buried in Greyfriars Churchyard.