BIB_ID
211763
Accession number
MA 1855.6
Creator
Coleridge, Samuel Taylor, 1772-1834.
Display Date
London, England, 1806 September 30.
Credit line
Purchased from Joanna Langlais, 1957.
Description
1 item (3 pages, with address) ; 24.6 x 19.9 cm
Notes
This collection, MA 1855, is comprised of thirteen autograph letters signed from Samuel Taylor Coleridge to various recipients, written from August 5, 1794 through March 1, 1832. The recipients include Derwent and Hartley Coleridge, William Hart Coleridge, Henry Nelson Coleridge, Charles Lamb, Thomas Poole and Dorothy Wordsworth.
This letter is from the Joanna Langlais Collection, a large collection of letters written by Samuel Taylor Coleridge to various recipients. The collection has been divided into subsets, based primarily on Coleridge's addressees, and these sub-collections have been cataloged individually as MA 1848- MA 1857.
Address panel to "Capt'n Derkheim / of the American Ship, Gosport, / off / Deal."
Written from "348, Strand, London."
Captain Derkheim was an American sea captain who took care of Coleridge when he was sailing with him from Leghorn and then promised to see that Coleridge's trunk of books and papers were taken off the ship when it landed and stored safely until Coleridge could pick them up.
This letter is from the Joanna Langlais Collection, a large collection of letters written by Samuel Taylor Coleridge to various recipients. The collection has been divided into subsets, based primarily on Coleridge's addressees, and these sub-collections have been cataloged individually as MA 1848- MA 1857.
Address panel to "Capt'n Derkheim / of the American Ship, Gosport, / off / Deal."
Written from "348, Strand, London."
Captain Derkheim was an American sea captain who took care of Coleridge when he was sailing with him from Leghorn and then promised to see that Coleridge's trunk of books and papers were taken off the ship when it landed and stored safely until Coleridge could pick them up.
Provenance
Purchased from Joanna Langlais in 1957 as a gift of the Fellows with the special assistance of Mrs. W. Murray Crane, Mr. Homer D. Crotty, Mr. and Mrs. Donald F. Hyde, Mr. Robert H. Taylor and Mrs. Landon K. Thorne. Formerly in the possession of Ernest Hartley Coleridge and Thomas Burdett Money-Coutts, Baron Latymer.
Summary
Concerning the loss of his trunk, his books and his papers which Captain Derkheim said he would hold for him; "saying "I am so much affected by your setting sail without leaving either my books, or a single line to direct me concerning the trunk that was put in Quarantine, that it is with a heart of anguish that I attempt to congratulate you on your marriage : tho' I most sincerely wish you all happiness. Indeed grievous as the loss of the books is to me - of books that can be neither useful nor amusing to you - and tho' this loss will entirely deprive me of the power of giving my intended Lectures, to the loss of 150£ at least - yet still I seem to suffer more than all from the perplexed and distracted state of mind, into which I have been thrown. When I recall your kindness to me on board the Gosport, and your constant promises / & then again think of my urgent and almost begging Letters to you - & that you never could take the trouble even of letting me know definitely where my Books & other little things were - my heart sinks within me! - I cannot bear to express indignation, lest I should accuse myself as ungrateful - I can not bear to think of my gratitude, lest I should rouse up a sense of your cruelty. I have little hope that this will find you - or that, if it does, you will give me an answer. - Yet I conjure you by your own peace of mind to write me one Line - just to let me know where the Trunk is - & where the loose Books. Any thing else - as the Attar of Roses - you are welcome to / but these can be of no use to you and are invaluable to me...I cannot but persuade myself that you have left them somewhere or other for me...However it be, I wish nevertheless that Heaven may protect you, and that those, of whom you think highly & affectionately, may never treat you with neglect & injury."
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