Confessions of an English Opium-Eater - Thomas de Quincey

There is quite a lot of back story to get through in this classic narcotic memoir before the climactic and revelatory opium dreams, but the writing is so good and the payoff so rewarding that one does not begrudge anything. The Romantics are not usually my scene unless you include the Gothic writers (all that navel-gazing) but this is great stuff.

I read the shorter 1822 edition, which I gather is superior to the more well-known 1856 version.