Coleridge and the Publishers: Twelve New Manuscripts
| Autor: | Eric W. Nye |
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| Rok vydání: | 1989 |
| Předmět: | |
| Zdroj: | Modern Philology. 87:51-72 |
| ISSN: | 1545-6951 0026-8232 |
| DOI: | 10.1086/391747 |
| Popis: | Much of the evidence has been at hand for a study of Coleridge and the institutions of publishing. Yet while examining five different collections in recent years I have come upon twelve of his manuscript letters-none of which was incorporated in the Oxford edition of Coleridge's letters. Oddly, a common thread appeared to run through all of these new texts. Each deals more or less significantly with Coleridge's experience of the publishing industry. That twelve letters written over thirty-six years, and discovered more or less by chance, should all connect in this way underscores the pervasiveness and suggests the complexity of their common theme. If the complete story were told of Coleridge and the publishers, it would not be a happy one. He often associated with publishers doomed to flounder or inclined to exploit him. In reaction Coleridge sought means of independent publication. Northrop Frye has observed how "such things as The Friend are comparable to Blake's efforts to get independent of publishers by illuminating his own poems."' Though beyond the scope of this introduction, a full study would relate the act of publication to Coleridge's philosophy of language, his understanding of the efficacy of the word. What were his considerations on the brink of publication, and moreover what were his motives, intricate though they might be, for putting to print a given work? Why did so many of his dealings with publishers end in disappointment? The institutions of publishing themselves changed dramatically during Coleridge's life. Perhaps the best introduction to the manuscripts that follow is a brief rehearsal of Coleridge's dealings with the publishers they mention. With the poet-publisher Joseph Cottle, Coleridge formed a relationship not just of business but of collegiality. Coleridge brought to their publishing ventures surprising experience for a young man in his mid-twenties. As an undergraduate he had placed his and Southey's Fall of Robespierre (1794) with Benjamin Flower in Cambridge. Then during the turbulent years of pantisocracy and unitarian leanings in Bristol, his A Moral and Political Lecture (1795) had been issued by George Routh. When Coleridge made Cottle's acquaintance in the winter of 1794-95, Cottle already had to his credit several years in business as a bookseller at Bristol and, as a perhaps equally attractive factor, the publication of his own small book of poems. Cottle's advice became indispensable, even in a work ostensibly published "by the Author" like the ten numbers of Coleridge's political newspaper, The Watchman (1796). Over the next four years, often in partnership with the printer Nathaniel Biggs, Cottle put to press poetry of Coleridge, Southey, Lamb, and eventually Wordsworth, most notably Lyrical Ballads (1798).2 Cottle served the circle in a number of ways, as instanced in the two present letters (94A, 199A), but though he prospered, he seems to have resented their eclipse of his own poetic |
| Databáze: | OpenAIRE |
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