Letter from Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Keswick, to William Godwin, 1801 April 28 : autograph manuscript signed.

Confirming receipt of Godwin's manuscript; saying that he has been reluctant to write because he didn't want to cost Godwin the postage; writing of his ill health and financial troubles; saying that he will do his best, but he is skeptical about his ability to give useful feedback on a work of the imagination: "I have been compelled, (wakeful thro' the night, & seldom able, for my eyes, to read in the Day) to seek resources in austerest reasonings - & have thereby so denaturalized my mind, that I can scarcely convey to you the disgust with which I look over any of my own compositions - a disgust, which has rendered the few brief Intervals of my Sicknesses profitless to me as to those engagements with my bookseller which I yet must fulfill or starve;" asking whether Godwin has seen Humphry Davy and saying that it has been some time since he has heard anything of him or from him; saying that he would very much like to hear about Godwin's plans for future literary projects; advising him against relying on the theater and suggesting that he try writing a novel along the lines of Tom Jones, "taking up your Hero or Heroine at or before the Birth, & relating his story in the third Person or first - as your Judgement inclines;" asking for his opinion on a new tragedy; saying that his wife and children are well and "I trust, that your little ones grow & flourish."