English Men of Letters: ColeridgeTraill, H. D. (Henry Duff)
General
English Men of Letters: Coleridge
Traill, H. D. (Henry Duff)
Coleridge, Samuel Taylor, 1772-1834; Critics -- Great Britain -- Biography; Poets, English -- 19th century -- Biography
The results of the step which Coleridge had just taken became speedily
visible in more ways than one, and the public were among the first to
derive benefit from it. For not only was he stimulated to greater
activity of production, but his now more methodical way of life gave
him time and inclination for that work of arrangement and preparation
for the press which, distasteful to most writers, was no doubt
especially irksome to him, and thus insured the publication of many
pieces which otherwise might never have seen the light. The appearance
of _Christabel_ was, as we have said, received with signal marks of
popular favour, three editions being called for and exhausted in the
same year. In 1816 there appeared also The Statesman's Manual; or the
Bible the best guide to Political Skill and Foresight: a Lay Sermon
addressed to the higher classes of Society, with an Appendix containing
Comments and Essays connected with the Study of the Inspired Writings;
in 1817, another _Lay Sermon addressed to the higher and middle classes
on the existing distresses and discontents;_ and in the same year
followed the most important publication of this period, the _Biographia
Literaria_.
In 1817, too, it was that Coleridge at last made his long-meditated
collection and classification of his already published poems, and that
for the first time something approaching to a complete edition of the
poet's works was given to the world. The _Sibylline Leaves_, as this
reissue was called, had been intended to be preceded by another volume
of verse, and "accordingly on the printer's signatures of every sheet
we find Vol. II, appearing." Too characteristically, however, the
scheme was abandoned, and Volume II. emerged from the press without any
Volume I. to accompany it. The drama of _Zapolya_ followed in the same
year, and proved more successful with the public than with the critic
of Drury Lane. The "general reader" assigned no "ludicrous objections
to its metaphysics;" on the contrary, he took them on trust, as his
generous manner is, and _Zapolya_, published thus as a Christmas tale,
became so immediately popular that two thousand copies were sold in six
weeks. In the year 1818 followed the three-volume selection of essays
from the _Friend_, a reissue to which reference has already been made.
With the exception of _Christabel_, however, all the publications of
these three years unfortunately proceeded from the house of Gale and
Fenner, a firm which shortly afterwards became bankrupt; and Coleridge
thus lost all or nearly all of the profits of their sale.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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