BIB_ID
415192
Accession number
MA 1849.44
Creator
Coleridge, Samuel Taylor, 1772-1834.
Display Date
London, England, 1813 January 27.
Credit line
Purchased from Joanna Langlais, 1957.
Description
1 item (4 pages, with address) ; 23.7 x 19.0 cm
Notes
This collection, MA 1849, is comprised of forty-six autograph letters signed from Samuel Taylor Coleridge to his wife, Sara Coleridge, written between 1802 and 1824.
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 with postmark to "Mrs. Coleridge / Greta Hall / Keswick / Cumberland."
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 with postmark to "Mrs. Coleridge / Greta Hall / Keswick / Cumberland."
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
Discussing, at length and in detail, the success of his play "Remorse" and the financial and publication negotiations he is having; saying "Hitherto the Remorse has met with unexampled Applause - but whether it will continue to fill the House, that is quite another Question - and of this my Friends are, in my opinion, far, far too sanguine;" relating specifics of the publication terms including an agreement that "...at any future time, I may publish it in any volume of my Poems collectively;" referring to what appear to be negative reviews in the press; discussing finances and his desire to reimburse her for expenses she has incurred for the children; relating the success of his Lectures; saying "I concluded my lectures last night most triumphantly, with loud, long, & enthusiastic applauses at my Entrance, & ditto in yet fuller Chorus as and for some minutes after, I had retired. It was lucky, that (as I never once thought of the Lecture, till I had entered the Lecture Box) the two last were the most impressive, and really the best. I suppose, that no dramatic Author ever had so large a number of unsolicited, unknown, yet predetermined Plauditors in the Theatre, as I had on Saturday Night. One of the malignant papers asserted, that I had collected all the Saints from Mile End Turnpike to Tyburn Bar. With so many warm Friends it is impossible in the present state of human Nature, that I should not have many unprovoked & unknown Enemies. - You will have heard, that on my entering the Box on Saturday Night I was discovered by the Pit - & that they all turned their faces towards our Box, & gave a treble chear of Claps. I mention these things, because it will please Southey to hear that there is a large number of Persons in London, who hail with enthusiasm any prospect of the Stage's being purified & rendered classical. My success, if I succeed (of which, I assure you, I entertain doubts in my opinion well-founded, both from the want of a prominent actor for Ordonio, & from the want of vulgar Pathos in the Play itself - nay, there is not enough even of true dramatic Pathos) but if I succeed, I succeed for others as well as for myself;" saying he has just seen Martha [Fricker] and suggests that she write to Mrs. Morgan to express "...your sense of their kindness & hospitable - nay, friendly - attentions to her - attentions wholly originating in themselves;" asking, in a postscript, for her to send him "...Mr. Sotheby's Folio Edition of all Petrarch's Works, which I left at Grasmere...At the same time, my Quarto MSS. Book, with the German Musical Play in it, & the two Folio Volumes of the Greek Poets may go. For I want them hourly - & I must try to imitate W. Scott (who has set me the example in a less honorable way, in contempt of the 8th commandment) in making Hay while the Sun shines."
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