BIB_ID
417022
Accession number
MA 2204.33
Creator
Coleridge, Samuel Taylor, 1772-1834.
Display Date
London, England, 1811 November 8.
Credit line
Purchased from James Richard Scarlett, 8th Baron Abinger, 1962.
Description
1 item (3 pages, with address) ; 22.6 x 18.5 cm
Notes
This letter has been written on the blank pages of a prospectus for a series of lectures on Shakespeare and Milton to be given by Coleridge at the London Philosophical Society. Coleridge has marked up the prospectus heavily, indicating which parts of it should appear in the advertisement. The prospectus includes a detailed description of the subject matter the lectures will cover, as well as information about when the lectures will be held, the price of tickets ("Single Tickets for the whole Course, 2 Guineas ; or 3 Guineas with the privilege of introducing a Lady") and the locations at which tickets can be procured (various booksellers', including Godwin's Juvenile Library, and from Coleridge directly, at the Morgans').
Coleridge lists only "Friday Evening" for the date of writing, but the letter has been endorsed "Nov. 8, 1811," which fell on a Friday. See the published edition of the correspondence, cited below, for additional information.
No place of writing is given, but based on the contents and other letters from the same period, it was most likely written in London.
This collection, MA 2204, is comprised of 41 letters from Samuel Taylor Coleridge to William Godwin, written between 1800 and 1823. See the collection-level record for more information (MA 2204.1-41).
Address panel: "Mr Godwin / Juvenile Library / Skinner's Street."
Coleridge lists only "Friday Evening" for the date of writing, but the letter has been endorsed "Nov. 8, 1811," which fell on a Friday. See the published edition of the correspondence, cited below, for additional information.
No place of writing is given, but based on the contents and other letters from the same period, it was most likely written in London.
This collection, MA 2204, is comprised of 41 letters from Samuel Taylor Coleridge to William Godwin, written between 1800 and 1823. See the collection-level record for more information (MA 2204.1-41).
Address panel: "Mr Godwin / Juvenile Library / Skinner's Street."
Provenance
Purchased, via the London dealer Constance A. Kyrle Fletcher, from James Richard Scarlett, 8th Baron Abinger, in 1962 as a gift of the Fellows.
Summary
Saying that he is sending Godwin the prospectus for his lectures "so marked as I would have it appear in the M.C. [Morning Chronicle], printed of course in the ordinary lineal form of an Advertisement;" asking if Godwin would pay to have it run in the Chronicle "from Monday Morning the 11th to Monday 18th inclusive, for which I will at once repay and ante-pay you in the course of the next week;" asking that it appear in "some conspicuous part of the Paper;" impressing on Godwin the urgency of this, "for it is a matter of great importance to me, as far as I am unfortunately a husband, Father, & - not thro' any fault of my own - a Debtor. Otherwise, from any lesser dictate than that of Duty, I would not have humbled myself to solicit favors from Newspaper People while such Luxuries, as Cabbage Stalks, lay rotting on Dunghills - No, nor then - for there are worse Deaths than Starving, even if much easier ones were out of our power -."
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