here were opium dens where one could buy oblivion, dens of horror where the memory of old sins could be destroyed by the madness of sins that were new.” Oscar Wilde in his novel, ‘The Picture of Dorian Gray’ (1891).
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The opium den with all its mystery, danger and intrigue appeared in many Victorian novels, poems and contemporary newspapers, and fuelled the public’s imagination.
“It is a wretched hole… so low that we are unable to stand upright. Lying pell-mell on a mattress placed on the ground are Chinamen, Lascars, and a few English blackguards who have imbibed a taste for opium.” So reported the French journal ‘Figaro’, describing an opium den in Whitechapel in 1868.
The public must have shuddered at these descriptions and imagined areas such as London’s docklands and the East End to be opium-drenched, exotic and dangerous places. In the 1800s a small Chinese community had settled in the established slum of Limehouse in London’s docklands, an area of backstreet pubs, brothels and opium dens. These dens catered mainly for seamen who had become addicted to the drug when overseas.