BIB_ID
415367
Accession number
MA 1848.46
Creator
Coleridge, Samuel Taylor, 1772-1834.
Display Date
Keswick, England, 1802 August 9.
Credit line
Purchased from Joanna Langlais, 1957.
Description
1 item (3 pages, with address) ; 33.6 x 21.1 cm
Notes
Coleridge does not list a place of writing, but based on the contents of the letter, it was clearly written at Greta Hall in Keswick. The letter is also postmarked "Keswick." See the published edition of the correspondence, cited below, for additional information.
This collection, MA 1848, is comprised of 92 letters from Samuel Taylor Coleridge to Robert Southey, written between 1794 and 1819. See the collection-level record for more information (MA 1848.1-92).
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 as MA 1848-1857.
Address panel with postmarks: "Robert Southey Esq. / St James's Place / King's Down / Bristol / Single Sheet."
This collection, MA 1848, is comprised of 92 letters from Samuel Taylor Coleridge to Robert Southey, written between 1794 and 1819. See the collection-level record for more information (MA 1848.1-92).
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 as MA 1848-1857.
Address panel with postmarks: "Robert Southey Esq. / St James's Place / King's Down / Bristol / Single Sheet."
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
Beginning "Derwent can say his Letters -- and if you could but see his darling Mouth, when he shouts out Q!"; describing in great detail a nine-day hiking trip around the Lake District, beginning at Grasmere and including an ascent of Scafell ("spent the whole day among clouds"); saying that he walked back from Bratha to Greta Hall on Monday (the day he is writing the letter), "where I now am, quite sweet and ablute / & have but even now read thro' your Letter"; promising to write more about the trip in a letter to follow, but saying for the moment that "of all earthly things which I have beheld, the view of Sca' Fell & from Sca' Fell, (both views from it's own summit) is the most heart-exciting"; turning to business, and discussing all practical matters concerning sharing Greta Hall with the Southeys, including the rent, what furnishings there are in the house, how to get his books sent there, and what crockery and linens are needed and how much they will cost; mentioning certain references in Southey's letter to literary figures (including the poet Robert Bloomfield) and saying that he will respond to them soon; sending news of Sara, Hartley and Derwent: "Hartley is almost ill with transport at my Sca' Fell expedition / That child is a Poet, spite of the Forehead 'villainous low,' which his Mother smuggled into his Face. Derwent is more beautiful than ever -- but very backward with his Tongue -- altho' he can say all his Letters -- N.B. Not out of Books"; asking in a postscript if Southey could let him know whether they have decided to proceed with the idea as soon as possible, so the landlord, William Jackson, can get to work preparing the house for their arrival; adding that another incentive for deciding quickly is that they can then lay in a stock of coal in the summer for less money; promising that Sara will write to Edith soon and commenting on the spelling of her name "Sara did not catch the a itch, before her concubition with Abram"; saying that he has also gotten a letter from Thomas Poole, but he found so many letters on his return that he has only opened Southey's.
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