Holmes, Richard (Coleridge, Samuel Taylor)

Coleridge: Early Visions

ISBN: 9780670804443
New York, NY, USA: VIking Books, 1990. First Edition (Review Copy). Hardcover. “Coleridge was always fascinated by anything that promised poetical marvels or metaphysical peculiarities. The subject of his own childhood was no exception. “Before I was eight years old,” he used to begin in his hypnotic manner, “I was a character – sensibility, imagination, vanity, sloth…were even then prominent & manifest.” And then, like the Ancient Mariner, there was no stopping him. / In later life he talked of boyhood and schooldays with many of his closest friends, and wrote vividly about it in his poetry, his letters, his Biographia, and his private Notebooks. In all these records, a rich mixture of tragi-comedy, he developed the self-portrait of a precocious, highly imaginative child, driven into “exile” in the world, before he was emotionally prepared for its rigours, by the early death of his father. Cut off from the universe of nature and family affections, he saw himself as an exceptional creature, both intellectually brilliant and morally unstable. He was to make it one of the archetypes of Romantic childhood…”--Richard Holmes, pg. 1. Richard Holmes (b. 1945) is a British author and academic best known for his biographical studies of major figures of British and French Romanticism. The author of works like: Shelley: The Pursuit (1974); Nerval: The Chimeras (1985); and Mary Wollstonecraft and William Godwin: A Short Residence in Sweden and Memoirs (1987), among many other great works–Holmes’ straightforward, minimalist prose approach draws readers in and, with relative ease, paints the complex and labyrinthine lives of his biographical subjects in vivid detail and clarity. Offered today is the 1990 biographical work, Coleridge: Early Visions. Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772-1834), the subject of this biography, was an English poet, literary critic, philosopher, and theologian who was a founder of the Romantic Movement in England and a member of the Lake Poets with his friend William Wordsworth (1770-1850). Coleridge’s life and legacy went on to not only spur the Romantic Movement, but is profoundly important to subsequent modern literature. Coleridge: Early Visions is a microscopic examination of the early life of Coleridge. From inside front cover of dust jacket: “Coleridge: Early Visions, is the first volume of a major new biography, will transform our view of the poet of “Kubla Khan” and his place in the Romantic Movement. The Coleridge Richard Holmes offers us is not the opium addict, the plagiarist, or the mystic charlatan of recent scholarship. The Romantic writer who emerges in these pages is unforgettably vivid and unexpected, a true portrait of unfolding genius. “Coleridge seemed to learn as much from landscape as from literature; as much from children’s games as from philosophic treatises; as much from birdflight as from theology.” The result is an original act of biographic recreation which brings to life not only Coleridge’s poetry and encyclopedic thought, but above all his creative energy and physical presence, the very sound of his voice, his fantastic mixture of stormy ebullience and anxious self-doubt. The poet emerges a “hero for a self questioning age.”” From the collection of Laurence Goldstein (1943-2023), a renowned American poet, film critic, editor & academician here at the University of Michigan. We have found and retained, between front cover and first leaf, [1] a Viking Review Copy sheet, and [2] a promotional newsletter for Coleridge: Early Visions. Hardcover in unclipped dust jacket. "First American Edition” as stated at copyright page, first printing as indicated by number sequence thereon. Book in very fine condition with only minor wear to fine edges. Dust Jacket very fine with slight wear to fine edges, and light smudging/scratching to front and back covers. Very Fine / Very Fine. [Item #8823]

Price: $50.00