De Quincey who was very interested in German literature and philosophy, started about 20 years after Kant's death to collect all surviving reports and information related to Kant's last phase of life. At that time, Kant's philosophy was not yet very well known outside the German-speaking countries, since he had published almost everything he wrote in German, a language that had until then no tradition as a language of science and that was therefore not very well known in academic circles outside the German-speaking countries.