Note 9 — Chapter III · : MANCHESTER AND MEDICINE
Reading edition
His uncle, Edward Healy Thompson, afterwards remembered that The Opium Eater was his favourite book at home: "We had often said his experiences would surpass those of de Quincey."
At the same time the family noted other influences; it was a tradition of theirs that "On the 3rd Sunday of September, 1885, Fr. Richardson of St. Mary's, Ashton-under Lyne, delivered a sermon on 'Our Lady of Sorrows,' which, Francis hearing, was the subject of his meditation, and, two years later, of his poem 'The Passion of Mary.' It is thought that he did not make any notes on the sermon in church, but in the drawing-room at home in Stamford Street he made use that same night of pencil and paper."