Encountering the Kelmscott Coleridge

<img src="http://40.media.tumblr.com/e2ddec54dc1de266eea26bed1e93c174/tumblr_o61n6f1BWz1vn37d9o1_1280.jpg" width="640" height="315"> Welcome! This is the virtual space where you can interact with an online version of //Poems chosen out of the works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge//, published by the Kelmscott Press in 1896. The particular copy you are encountering comes from the Special Collections room of Illinois State University's Milner Library. <img src="http://56.media.tumblr.com/a115d1d655b8b304f85b38f606c13296/tumblr_o3h7sxlyw01vn37d9o1_1280.jpg" width="332" height="602" alt="Front Cover"> From here you can: [[Take a closer look at the cover.->Upclose Cover]] [[Examine the spine.->Spine]] [[Flip the book over and look at the back cover.->Back Cover]] [[Open the cover of the book.->Opening 1]] [[Open to a random page.->Opening 23]] [[Pull out the slip of paper and look at it.->Call slip]] [[Flip to the page with the slip sticking out of it.->Opening 22]] [[Learn more about this project.->Theoretical Background]]

You are looking at the front cover. You notice the texture of the blue leather cover and the beautiful handtooled floral design inlaid with gold. You notice the damage on the cover: there are a small few gouges and along the spine it looks like the front cover is partially detached from the rest of the book, mainly near the bottom. You decided that you are going to handle this book more gingerly from now on. <img src="http://40.media.tumblr.com/fa4106cf7203721897631fd5f879567c/tumblr_o3h8yu0AjH1vn37d9o1_1280.jpg" width="654" height="904" alt="Frontcover Upclose"> From here you can: Use the return arrow above to go back. [[Check out the spine.->Spine]] [[Slowly flip it over to the back.->Back Cover]] [[Set the book down on its spine.->Rest on Spine]] [[Open the book to the first page.->Opening 1]] [[Open the book to somewhere further in the book.->Opening 28]]

You are looking at the spine of the book. It reads "Poems" by "S. T. Coleridge" and at the bottom of the spine is the year 1896, the date of publication. <img src="http://41.media.tumblr.com/a366a39f9a619ba6ae352f46fad922ed/tumblr_o3do1dBOfq1vn37d9o8_1280.jpg" width="92" height="960" alt="Spine"> From here you can: [[Look at the front cover.->Upclose Cover]] [[Look at the back cover.->Back Cover]] [[Rest the book on the spine.->Rest on Spine]] [[Learn more about S. T. Coleridge.->Coleridge]]

You are looking at the back cover. <img src="http://40.media.tumblr.com/2c049e7c6fa25ee10ce0c8a0c87e6cd9/tumblr_o3h8jsrbqd1vn37d9o1_1280.jpg" width="395" height="615" alt="Back Cover"> From here you can: [[Pull out the slip of paper and look at it.->Call slip]] [[Flip to the page with the slip sticking out of it.->Opening 22]] [[Examine the spine.->Spine]] [[Flip it back over to the front.->Upclose Cover]] [[Open the book to the last page.->Opening 59]]

Here you are looking at the beginning of the book. The ''end papers'' of this book have been decorated with pink, purple, and gold ''marbling''. End papers are pasted half to the binding and half to the book itself, to give a finished appearance to the book. Marbling is a technique sometimes used for endpapers in which a sheet of paper is place on top of a liquid medium containing swirls and whorls of various pigments. The result is an "organic" effect in which no two marbled pages are exactly the same ("Alibris"). The covers of the book have a ''dentelle'' edge. That is to say, a gilt decorative edge on the inside of the boards ("Preservation/Rare Books"). Some of the right page has been discolored blue by contact with the dentelle edge. <a href="http://56.media.tumblr.com/37640759971bc4d8e566abad6dee5bd9/tumblr_o3harmlTgV1vn37d9o1_1280.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://56.media.tumblr.com/37640759971bc4d8e566abad6dee5bd9/tumblr_o3harmlTgV1vn37d9o1_1280.jpg" width="1144" height="896" style="width:95%;height:auto" alt="End pages with marbled papers and blue leather trim."></a> //Click to see an enlarged image.// From here you can: [[Close the book.->Closed]] [[Turn to the next page.->Opening 2]] [[Skip ahead a bit.->Opening 5]] [[Look more closely at the tiny gold print at the bottom of the inside front cover.->Toof & Co.]]

The book is resting on its spine. From this vantage point you can't help but notice how rough and uneven the edges of most of the pages look compared to a modern book. This uneven, rough edge is called ''deckling'', and is the product of an earlier form of papermaking ("Preservation/Rare Books"). <img src="http://56.media.tumblr.com/76107ceb957f9c1c06ea22336d5b514c/tumblr_o3do1dBOfq1vn37d9o7_1280.jpg" width="94" height="960" alt="Two foxes"> From here you can: [[Open the book to the first page.->Opening 1]] [[Open the book to somewhere in the middle.->Opening 29]] [[Open the book somewhere near the end.->Opening 56]] [[Take a closer look at the front cover.->Upclose Cover]] [[Flip it over and examine the spine.->Spine]] [[Take a closer look at the back cover.->Back Cover]]

You've closed the book. <img src="http://56.media.tumblr.com/a115d1d655b8b304f85b38f606c13296/tumblr_o3h7sxlyw01vn37d9o1_1280.jpg" width="332" height="602" alt="Front Cover"> From here you can: Close your browser tab, if you are done exploring this book. <a href="https://curationlab.org/">Return to the Digital Archival Curation Center.</a> [[Learn more about the theoretical background of this project.->Theoretical Background]] [[Take a closer look at the front cover.->Upclose Cover]] [[Examine the spine.->Spine]] [[Flip the book over.->Back Cover]] [[Open the book at the beginning.->Opening 1]] [[Open the book to somewhere in the middle.->Opening 31]]

Here you are looking at the bookplate, a small decorative element added to books to indicate their owner. "Ex Libris" is Latin, meaning "from the library of." Some of the ink from the bookplate has transfered an image to the opposite page. <a href="http://36.media.tumblr.com/e75be7c76fb7c030fa1159f6ca0b6f25/tumblr_o5fle1I28H1vn37d9o1_1280.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://36.media.tumblr.com/e75be7c76fb7c030fa1159f6ca0b6f25/tumblr_o5fle1I28H1vn37d9o1_1280.jpg" width="1179" height="890" style="width:95%;height:auto" alt="Bookplate"></a> //Click to see an enlarged image.// From here you can: [[Learn more about Wanda Frischen-Carus.->Wanda Frischen-Carus]] [[Learn more about the illustrator, "HV."->Heinrich Vogeler]] [[Close the book.->Closed]] [[Turn to the previous page.->Opening 1]] [[Turn to the next page.->Opening 3]] [[Skip ahead a bit.->Opening 7]]

Here you are looking at two blank pages. The fine paper is translucent enough that you can see some printing on the next page, but it is hard to tell what it says without turning the page. <a href="http://41.media.tumblr.com/2a3a4040c9a38fc0bb5e81162ec9e8a3/tumblr_o5fln0SgzN1vn37d9o1_1280.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://41.media.tumblr.com/2a3a4040c9a38fc0bb5e81162ec9e8a3/tumblr_o5fln0SgzN1vn37d9o1_1280.jpg" style="width:95%;height:auto"></a> //Click to see an enlarged image.// From here you can: [[Close the book.->Closed]] [[Turn to the previous page.->Opening 4]] [[Turn to the next page.->Opening 6]] [[Skip ahead a bit.->Opening 15]] [[Flip back a bit.->Opening 2]]

What you find here are two blank pages. <a href="http://40.media.tumblr.com/520328a7a5989d750c926ccd9386af16/tumblr_o5flka8Prh1vn37d9o1_1280.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://40.media.tumblr.com/520328a7a5989d750c926ccd9386af16/tumblr_o5flka8Prh1vn37d9o1_1280.jpg" width="1209" height="909" style="width:95%;height:auto"></a> //Click to see an enlarged image.// From here you can: [[Close the book.->Closed]] [[Turn to the previous page.->Opening 2]] [[Turn to the next page.->Opening 4]] [[Skip ahead a bit.->Opening 10]] [[Flip back a bit.->Opening 1]]

Here you are looking at the Table of Contents for the book. Someone has penciled in the Library of Congress call number for the work in the margin, while the bottom of the other pages has the number "192994" at the bottom. You can see through the translucent paper that something big and elaboratore is printed on the next page. <a href="http://40.media.tumblr.com/3a7867d9492ff622693f0029d3f7fd8b/tumblr_o5fls9zZp51vn37d9o1_1280.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://40.media.tumblr.com/3a7867d9492ff622693f0029d3f7fd8b/tumblr_o5fls9zZp51vn37d9o1_1280.jpg" style="width:95%;height:auto"></a> //Click to see an enlarged image.// From here you can: [[Close the book.->Closed]] [[Go to the next page.->Opening 8]] [[Go to "Christabel"->Opening 8]] [[Go to "Kubla Khan"->Opening 20]] [[Go to "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner"->Opening 22]] [[Go to "A Fragment of the Sexton's Tale"->Opening 35]] [[Go to "Love"->Opening 42]] [[Go to "The Ballad of the Dark Ladie"->Opening 44]] [[Go to "Names"->Opening 46]] [[Go to "Youth and Age"->Opening 46]] [[Go to "The Improvisatore"->Opening 47]] [[Go to "Work without Hope"->Opening 49]] [[Go to "The Garden of Boccaccio"->Opening 49]] [[Go to "The Knight's Tomb"->Opening 51]] [[Go to "Alice Du Clos"->Opening 52]]

Here you are looking at two mostly blank pages, but you see they are clearly two different kinds of paper. As you glance at the pages before and after you can easily see that the page on the left, with its darker and color and precisely cut edges, matches the preceding pages. The page on the right, with its lighter color and rough, ''deckled'' edges matches the majority of the book. Deckling is the product of an earlier form of papermaking ("Preservation/Rare Books"). <a href="http://41.media.tumblr.com/d6905b32a6517820eb295be7bf84014c/tumblr_o5flljH7f51vn37d9o1_1280.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://41.media.tumblr.com/d6905b32a6517820eb295be7bf84014c/tumblr_o5flljH7f51vn37d9o1_1280.jpg" style="width:95%;height:auto"></a> //Click to see an enlarged image.// The two kinds of paper are an artifact of this book's history. The Kelmscott Press bound their books very simply. For the first three centuries of printing in the West it was assumed that purchasers would take their new books to have them custom bound at a book bindery. That practice was on the wane by the time this book was produced, as machine binders were available as early as 1882 (Howard 135). However, the Kelmscott Press continued the earlier practice. The book binder wrapped the additional, darker pages around those that originated from Kelmscott. The small letter //a// on the bottom right is a ''signature mark''. These marks are used when the individual parts of the book are assembled, to ensure the pages end up in the correct order ("Preservation/Rare Books"). From here you can: [[Learn more about the book binder.->Toof & Co.]] [[Close the book.->Closed]] [[Turn to the previous page.->Opening 3]] [[Turn to the next page.->Opening 5]] [[Skip ahead a bit.->Opening 12]] [[Flip back a bit.->Opening 2]]

Here you are looking at two pages of the poem //Christabel//. <a href="http://36.media.tumblr.com/ccf20b16335d3dc6893ec4eaea26bdbe/tumblr_o5un48aggt1vn37d9o1_1280.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://36.media.tumblr.com/ccf20b16335d3dc6893ec4eaea26bdbe/tumblr_o5un48aggt1vn37d9o1_1280.jpg" style="width:95%;height:auto"></a> //Click to see an enlarged image.// The character of Geraldine, first named in the passage reproduced above, was a source of controversy during the period immediately after the initial publication of the poem. Coleridge was drawn into a feud with William Hazlitt following the latter's scathing critique in the //Edinburgh Review//. At one point in the fued Hazlitt apparently resorted to starting a rumor that the character of Geraldine was secretly a man in disguise. Further rumors suggested that the character was actually a witch or evil spirit. Coleridge denied all these allegations. (Halmi, Magnuson, and Modiano 159). It was the incomplete nature of the work that provided the fertile ground for these suppositions. With no ending, everyone is free to speculate as to Geraldine's true nature. From here you can: <a hre="https://docs.google.com/document/d/1BMPMkBmOWBkuJzoJf6UDP-M1ObKi02ocwtl0mdUOMhM/edit?usp=sharing" target="_blank">Access a printer friendly version of this poem.</a> [[Close the book.->Closed]] [[Turn to the previous page.->Opening 9]] [[Turn to the next page.->Opening 11]] [[Skip ahead a bit.->Opening 16]] [[Flip back a bit.->Opening 4]]

Here you are looking at two pages of Coleridge's poem //Christabel//. <a href="http://56.media.tumblr.com/ef0baae23a91461aa0e643e3427fb770/tumblr_o3m73qxYUo1vn37d9o1_1280.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://56.media.tumblr.com/ef0baae23a91461aa0e643e3427fb770/tumblr_o3m73qxYUo1vn37d9o1_1280.jpg" style="width:95%;height:auto"></a> //Click to see an enlarged image.// From here you can: <a hre="https://docs.google.com/document/d/1BMPMkBmOWBkuJzoJf6UDP-M1ObKi02ocwtl0mdUOMhM/edit?usp=sharing" target="_blank">Access a printer friendly version of this poem.</a> [[Close the book.->Closed]] [[Turn to the previous page.->Opening 11]] [[Turn to the next page.->Opening 13]] [[Skip ahead a bit.->Opening 19]] [[Flip back a bit.->Opening 4]]

Here you are looking at a page giving the title of the book, //Poems Chosen Out of the Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge//. <a href="http://41.media.tumblr.com/2f8b10b0987af214c549da012af07ee0/tumblr_o5flq9KeUV1vn37d9o1_1280.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://41.media.tumblr.com/2f8b10b0987af214c549da012af07ee0/tumblr_o5flq9KeUV1vn37d9o1_1280.jpg" style="width:95%;height:auto"></a> //Click to see an enlarged image.// From here you can: [[Learn more about Samuel Taylor Coleridge.->Coleridge]] [[Close the book.->Closed]] [[Turn to the previous page.->Opening 5]] [[Turn to the next page.->Opening 7]] [[Skip ahead a bit.->Opening 16]] [[Flip back a bit.->Opening 3]]

Here you are looking at two pages of Coleridge's poem //Christabel//, specifically where the second part begins. The first word of the second section features a large woodblock initial //E//. <a href="http://56.media.tumblr.com/bbda4fbc2aa32e4650a5da57744acf1c/tumblr_o43ea1MHOd1vn37d9o1_1280.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://56.media.tumblr.com/bbda4fbc2aa32e4650a5da57744acf1c/tumblr_o43ea1MHOd1vn37d9o1_1280.jpg" style="width:95%;height:auto"></a> //Click to see an enlarged image.// Colridge's friend and literary colleague Charles Lamb became uncharacteristically angry when he discovered the existence of a second part to //Christabel//. He considered the first part to be beautiful and sufficient on its own (Worthen 27). From here you can: <a hre="https://docs.google.com/document/d/1BMPMkBmOWBkuJzoJf6UDP-M1ObKi02ocwtl0mdUOMhM/edit?usp=sharing" target="_blank">Access a printer friendly version of this poem.</a> [[Learn more about the large woodblock initials employed by the Kelmscott Press.->Woodblock initials]] [[Close the book.->Closed]] [[Turn to the previous page.->Opening 14]] [[Turn to the next page.->Opening 16]] [[Skip ahead a bit.->Opening 25]] [[Flip back a bit.->Opening 8]]

Here you are looking at two pages from the second part of the poem //Christabel//. <a href="http://41.media.tumblr.com/26365efb643555ad165d2f273413f152/tumblr_o43fkzi8pd1r1izumo1_1280.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://41.media.tumblr.com/26365efb643555ad165d2f273413f152/tumblr_o43fkzi8pd1r1izumo1_1280.jpg" style="width:95%;height:auto"></a> //Click to see an enlarged image.// The letter //c// at the bottom of page 17 is a ''signature mark'', which allows those assembling the loose pages to easily determine the order they are to be arranged in the finished book ("Preservation/Rare Books"). From here you can: <a hre="https://docs.google.com/document/d/1BMPMkBmOWBkuJzoJf6UDP-M1ObKi02ocwtl0mdUOMhM/edit?usp=sharing" target="_blank">Access a printer friendly version of this poem.</a> [[Close the book.->Closed]] [[Turn to the previous page.->Opening 15]] [[Turn to the next page.->Opening 17]] [[Skip ahead a bit.->Opening 24]] [[Flip back a bit.->Opening 7]]

Here you have discovered a gorgeous two-page spread of the kind that made the Kelmscott Press famous for its artistry. Most of the design work for the ornamental features of Kelmscott Press books was done by press founder William Morris. Craftsment William Harcourt Hooper then turned each design into a wooden block suitable for use in printing. The original wooden blocks now reside in the British Museum (Johnson xi). <a href="http://41.media.tumblr.com/bc53f3dfd4e5bb2880725354a3ddb88e/tumblr_o5fluduURx1vn37d9o1_1280.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://41.media.tumblr.com/bc53f3dfd4e5bb2880725354a3ddb88e/tumblr_o5fluduURx1vn37d9o1_1280.jpg" style="width:95%;height:auto"></a> //Click to see an enlarged image.// For more information on //Christabel//, the first peom in the collection, turn to the next page. From here you can: <a hre="https://docs.google.com/document/d/1BMPMkBmOWBkuJzoJf6UDP-M1ObKi02ocwtl0mdUOMhM/edit?usp=sharing" target="_blank">Access a printer friendly version of //Christabel//.</a> [[Close the book.->Closed]] [[Turn to the previous page.->Opening 7]] [[Turn to the next page.->Opening 9]] [[Skip ahead a bit.->Opening 16]] [[Flip back a bit.->Opening 4]] [[Learn more about the Kelmscott Press->Kelmscott Press]]

Here you are looking at "The Conclusion to Part the Second" of //Christabel// and the beginning of the second poem in the collection, "Kubla Khan." The final section of //Christabel// opens with a large woodblock initial //A// while "Kubla Khan" opens with an even larger initial //I//. <a href="http://41.media.tumblr.com/97baf91ef898eac4bdfa679a641f13c9/tumblr_o5fm2oafHQ1vn37d9o1_1280.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://41.media.tumblr.com/97baf91ef898eac4bdfa679a641f13c9/tumblr_o5fm2oafHQ1vn37d9o1_1280.jpg" style="width:95%;height:auto"></a> //Click to see an enlarged image.// Prior to their publication in 1817 and 1816 respectively, "Kubla Khan" and //Christabel// circulated through the London literary scene, where they became known to a new generation of Romantic poets: Percy Bysshe Shelley, John Keats, and Lord Byron (Everest 28). Sir Walter Scott was also deeply influenced by //Christabel// (Worthen 26). Coleridge performed the latter work frequently, either reading or reciting for friends, some of whom made transcriptions of the performance or Coleridge's manuscript (//Poetical Works// 624). Many of Coleridge's friends heard Coleridge's plans for finishing the work and at various times he claimed to have written about twice as many lines as published in 1816. However, we have no evidence that he ever added another line to //Christabel// (Stillinger 80; Worthen 17, 26-7). Coleridge's struggle to finish the work led him at one point to declare he was giving up poetry altogether, but he continued to write verse up until his death in 1834 (Worthen 36). Note from the rhyme scheme that Coleridge intends "Khan" to be pronounced like "man." For more on "Kubla Khan," go to the next page. From here you can: <a hre="https://docs.google.com/document/d/1BMPMkBmOWBkuJzoJf6UDP-M1ObKi02ocwtl0mdUOMhM/edit?usp=sharing" target="_blank">Access a printer friendly version of //Christabel//.</a> <a hre="https://docs.google.com/document/d/19WFj3071WoQlizgH9ZyPndL1vMohRYZej8xvjXx_mVU/edit?usp=sharing" target="_blank">Access a printer friendly version of "Kubla Khan."</a> [[Learn more about the large woodblock initials employed by the Kelmscott Press.->Woodblock initials]] [[Close the book.->Closed]] [[Turn to the previous page.->Opening 19]] [[Turn to the next page.->Opening 21]] [[Skip ahead a bit.->Opening 33]] [[Flip back a bit.->Opening 13]]

Here you are looking at the second and third pages of //Christabel//, one of the three great visionary poems upon which Coleridge's reputation as a poet is founded (Worthen ix; Beer 241). The other two key Coleridge poems, "Kubla Khan" and //The Rime of the Ancent Mariner//, follow immediately after. <a href="http://40.media.tumblr.com/92ab429e941f0c505a22735cd8c784e3/tumblr_o5unzqElAj1vn37d9o1_1280.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://40.media.tumblr.com/92ab429e941f0c505a22735cd8c784e3/tumblr_o5unzqElAj1vn37d9o1_1280.jpg" style="width:95%;height:auto"></a> //Click to see an enlarged image.// All three of Coleridge's great works were begun in 1798 and all three are unfinished in one way or another (Worthen 18). He wrote the second part in the Lake District during the year 1800 in an attempt to finish the piece. Originally slated for inclusion in the second edition of //Lyrical Ballads//, a popular story, probably false, tells of William Wordsworth (Coleridge's //Lyrical Ballads// collaborator) refusing to include the work in the anthology. According to the tale, this rejection so shook Coleridge's confidence that he never wrote anything as good as the three great pieces of 1798 (26). Nearly 20 years after its initial composition, //Christabel// was published by Lord Byron's publisher John Murray in a slim volume that also contained "Kubla Khan" and "The Pains of Sleep" (the latter poem does not appear in this volume)(Stillinger 79; //Poetical Works// 623). All printings of //Christabel// in Coleridge's lifetime include a three paragraph preface that gives the timeline of composition of the work, explains the incompleteness of the poem as a case of poetic indolence, and notes that the metrical scheme is entirely based on accents with no reference to syllable count (//Poetic Works// 625-6). Some commentators liken the meter to that of Old English verse (Halmi, Magnuson, and Modiano 162; n. 3). An early manuscript version of the work included a epigraphical "Sonnet to Asra" of Coleridge's own devising (//Poetic Works// 625). Neither preface nor epigraph appears in this edition. From here you can: <a hre="https://docs.google.com/document/d/1BMPMkBmOWBkuJzoJf6UDP-M1ObKi02ocwtl0mdUOMhM/edit?usp=sharing" target="_blank">Access a printer friendly version of this poem.</a> [[Close the book.->Closed]] [[Turn to the previous page.->Opening 8]] [[Turn to the next page.->Opening 10]] [[Skip ahead a bit.->Opening 14]] [[Flip back a bit.->Opening 5]]

Here you find the last two pages of part I of //Christabel//. <a href="http://56.media.tumblr.com/a536b375cddf9d4a14ea485277b3d295/tumblr_o43df2bFuo1vn37d9o1_1280.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://56.media.tumblr.com/a536b375cddf9d4a14ea485277b3d295/tumblr_o43df2bFuo1vn37d9o1_1280.jpg" style="width:95%;height:auto"></a> //Click to see an enlarged image.// From here you can: <a hre="https://docs.google.com/document/d/1BMPMkBmOWBkuJzoJf6UDP-M1ObKi02ocwtl0mdUOMhM/edit?usp=sharing" target="_blank">Access a printer friendly version of this poem.</a> [[Close the book.->Closed]] [[Turn to the previous page.->Opening 13]] [[Turn to the next page.->Opening 15]] [[Skip ahead a bit.->Opening 21]] [[Flip back a bit.->Opening 7]]

Here you are looking at two pages of part I of //Christabel//. <a href="http://40.media.tumblr.com/653f288d386cc82051cc443422bd290a/tumblr_o5up6lnf501vn37d9o1_1280.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://40.media.tumblr.com/653f288d386cc82051cc443422bd290a/tumblr_o5up6lnf501vn37d9o1_1280.jpg" style="width:95%;height:auto"></a> //Click to see an enlarged image.// From here you can: <a hre="https://docs.google.com/document/d/1BMPMkBmOWBkuJzoJf6UDP-M1ObKi02ocwtl0mdUOMhM/edit?usp=sharing" target="_blank">Access a printer friendly version of this poem.</a> [[Close the book.->Closed]] [[Turn to the previous page.->Opening 10]] [[Turn to the next page.->Opening 12]] [[Skip ahead a bit.->Opening 22]] [[Flip back a bit.->Opening 6]]

Here you are looking at the opening pages of //The Rime of the Ancient Mariner//. A slip of paper has been left here, covering one of the pages. <a href="http://40.media.tumblr.com/1b8d90f02cbe4cfab206a6d8c92c9ac8/tumblr_o5fm5cDwYB1vn37d9o2_1280.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://40.media.tumblr.com/1b8d90f02cbe4cfab206a6d8c92c9ac8/tumblr_o5fm5cDwYB1vn37d9o2_1280.jpg" style="width:95%;height:auto"></a> //Click to see an enlarged image.// //The Rime of the Ancient Mariner// is Coleridge's most famous work, his status as a great poet resting on the continued interest in it, "Kubla Khan," and //Christabel//. (Newlyn 7; "The Later Poetry" 91). The first version was composed in the months of late 1797 and early 1798, though Coleridge continued to revise the work for the rest of his career (Worthen 22; Halmi, Magnuson, and Modiano 56). At least 18 versions can be documented over the course of the poets life, but no more than eight of them can be said to possess more than "minor distinctive differences" (//Poetical Works// 506-9; Stillinger 60). //Rime// originally appeared as the first poem in //Lyrical Ballads//, the anonymous poetry collection produced in collaboration with William Wordsworth that would prove to be a watershed moment in the early history of British Romanticism (Halmi, Magnuson, and Modiano 54; Gamer and Porter 15, 17). This work was written specifically for //Lyrical Ballads// and is widely considered Coleridge's most important contribution to it (Everest 22; Fowler 213). The versions of //Rime// that appears in the 1798 and 1800 editions of //Lyrical Ballads// begin with an ''argument'', a formal statement summarizing the plot of a work (Gamer and Porter 50; Harmon and Holman 44). Later editions, starting with the version to appear in the 1817 Coleridge collection //Sibylline Leaves//, begin instead with an ''epigraph'', a quotation or motto at the beginning of a work or section of a work that comments on the main text (Harmon and Holman 204). No version beginning with both an epigraph and an argument was published in Coleridge's lifetime (//Poetical Works// 509). The epigraph, written by 17th century theologian Thomas Burnet, has been translated from the Latin as follows: "I readily believe that there are more invisible beings in the universe than visible. But who will declare to us the nature of all these, the rank, relationships, distinguishing characteristics and qualities of each? What is it they do? Where is it they dwell? Always the human intellect circles around the knowledge of these mysteries, never touching the centre. Meanwhile it is, I deny not, ofttimes well pleasing to behold sketched upon the mind, as upon a tablet, a picture of the greater and better world; so shall not the spirit, wonted to the petty concerns of daily life, narrow itself over-much, nor sink utterly into trivialities. But meanwhile we must diligently seek after truth, and maintain a temperate judgement, if we would distinguish certainty from uncertainty, day from night." (Gardner 36) The argument is from the 1798 edition of //Lyrical Ballads//. The argument 1800 edition provides slightly more detail: "How a Ship, having first sailed to the Equator, was driven by Storms, to the cold Country towards the South Pole; how the Ancient Mariner cruelly, and in contempt of the laws of hospitality, killed a Sea-bird; and how he was followed by many and strange Judgements; and in what manner he came back to his own Country." (Stillinger 158-9) From here you can: <a href="https://docs.google.com/document/d/1S0iI2ORYd72fT8M42A_7zZPF_lm7PDyeA7EifPnQXKE/edit?usp=sharing" target="_blank">Access a printer friendly version of this poem.</a> [[Close the book.->Closed]] [[Pull out the slip of paper and look at it.->Call slip]] [[Temporarily remove the slip of paper and look at what is underneath.->Opening 22a]] [[Turn to the previous page.->Opening 21]] [[Turn to the next page.->Opening 23]] [[Skip ahead a bit.->Opening 29]] [[Flip back a bit.->Opening 15]]

Here you are looking at two pages of Coleridge's poem //Christabel//. On the lefthand page, at the beginning to the "Conclusion to Part the First" is a large woodblock initial letter //I//. <a href="http://56.media.tumblr.com/8d22bee3124353864bf19d068dc9ec4c/tumblr_o3m85qZ4AZ1vn37d9o1_1280.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://56.media.tumblr.com/8d22bee3124353864bf19d068dc9ec4c/tumblr_o3m85qZ4AZ1vn37d9o1_1280.jpg" style="width:95%;height:auto"></a> //Click to see an enlarged image.// From here you can: <a hre="https://docs.google.com/document/d/1BMPMkBmOWBkuJzoJf6UDP-M1ObKi02ocwtl0mdUOMhM/edit?usp=sharing" target="_blank">Access a printer friendly version of this poem.</a> [[Learn more about the large woodblock initials employed by the Kelmscott Press.->Woodblock initials]] [[Close the book.->Closed]] [[Turn to the previous page.->Opening 12]] [[Turn to the next page.->Opening 14]] [[Skip ahead a bit.->Opening 17]] [[Flip back a bit.->Opening 5]]

Here you are looking at two pages from part II of //Christabel//. <a href="http://40.media.tumblr.com/3a9eeeb1517f99564b7b102e21e2ba59/tumblr_o5fm1gjfZp1vn37d9o1_1280.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://40.media.tumblr.com/3a9eeeb1517f99564b7b102e21e2ba59/tumblr_o5fm1gjfZp1vn37d9o1_1280.jpg" style="width:95%;height:auto"></a> //Click to see an enlarged image.// From here you can: <a hre="https://docs.google.com/document/d/1BMPMkBmOWBkuJzoJf6UDP-M1ObKi02ocwtl0mdUOMhM/edit?usp=sharing" target="_blank">Access a printer friendly version of this poem.</a> [[Close the book.->Closed]] [[Turn to the previous page.->Pages 22 and 23]] [[Turn to the next page.->Opening 20]] [[Skip ahead a bit.->Opening 25]] [[Flip back a bit.->Opening 8]]

Here you are looking at the middle and last pages of "Kubla Khan." <a href="http://41.media.tumblr.com/f542725e850a97b674af0885a5db10bc/tumblr_o5fm3knLgL1vn37d9o1_1280.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://41.media.tumblr.com/f542725e850a97b674af0885a5db10bc/tumblr_o5fm3knLgL1vn37d9o1_1280.jpg" style="width:95%;height:auto"></a> //Click to see an enlarged image.// "Kubla Khan" was first published in 1816 with two other peoms by Coleridge, //Christabel// and "The Pains of Sleep" (Stillinger 73). Along with //Christabel// and //The Rime of the Ancient Mariner// (the next poem in this volume), it is one of the three great "visionary" poem upon which much of his reputation is based (Beer 241; Worthen 18). In its earliest published form "Kubla Khan" was preceded by a three page introduction titled "Of the Fragment of Kubla Khan." In it, Coleridge tells the now famous story of waking from a reverie with two or three hundred lines of verse on the topic of the eponymous Mongol emperor's pleasure-palace. As he transcribed the poem a businessman--now known as the Person from Porlock--interrupted the composition and broke the spell, leaving only the brief fragment now recorded (//Christabel: Kubla Khan, a Vision; The Pains of Sleep// 51-54). One pre-publication manuscript version of the poem omits the Person from Porlock narrative but includes the detail that the Coleridge's inspirational dream state followed on the heels of ingesting "two grains of Opium, taken to check a dysentery" (//Poetical Works// 674). Based upon a review of Coleridge's notebooks, John Worthen argues that opium played no part in the actual genesis of the poem. Rather, Coleridge used the drug for pain management only (15). Lucy Nelwyn suggests a more allegorical reading of "Of the Fragment" as Coleridge commenting on the fragmentary and irretrievable qualities of his poetic powers, an acknowledgment of "the centrality of evanescence to his creative imagination" (8). Alastair Fowler's //A History of English Literature// notes that "many see it now as the quintessential Romantic poem" whose "fragmentary nature interrupts ordinary reality in such a way as to make the relation of the real and imaginary worlds problematic" (212-2). Lord Byron was fascinated with the line "woman wailing for her demon lover," which appears on the previous page (Worthen 28). From here you can: <a hre="https://docs.google.com/document/d/19WFj3071WoQlizgH9ZyPndL1vMohRYZej8xvjXx_mVU/edit?usp=sharing" target="_blank">Access a printer friendly version of this poem."</a> [[Close the book.->Closed]] [[Turn to the previous page.->Opening 20]] [[Turn to the next page.->Opening 22]] [[Skip ahead a bit.->Opening 25]] [[Flip back a bit.->Opening 18]]

Here you are looking at two pages from the second part of //Christabel//. <a href="http://41.media.tumblr.com/21a5df9f908b2813e6f0d7774f4041c1/tumblr_o5flydWV7e1vn37d9o1_1280.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://41.media.tumblr.com/21a5df9f908b2813e6f0d7774f4041c1/tumblr_o5flydWV7e1vn37d9o1_1280.jpg" style="width:95%;height:auto"></a> //Click to see an enlarged image.// The characters //c2// at the bottom of page 19 is a ''signature mark'', which allows those assembling the loose pages to easily determine the order they are to be arranged in the finished book ("Preservation/Rare Books"). From here you can: <a hre="https://docs.google.com/document/d/1BMPMkBmOWBkuJzoJf6UDP-M1ObKi02ocwtl0mdUOMhM/edit?usp=sharing" target="_blank">Access a printer friendly version of this poem.</a> [[Close the book.->Closed]] [[Turn to the previous page.->Opening 16]] [[Turn to the next page.->Opening 18]] [[Skip ahead a bit.->Opening 30]] [[Flip back a bit.->Opening 9]]

Here you are looking at the last two pages of part II of //The Rime of the Ancient Mariner// and the beginning of part III. The ''marginal glosses'' at the end of part II erupt into the space of the main text. The new part begins with a large woodblock letter //T//. <a href="http://40.media.tumblr.com/bc03ac44686d2cfd188c05d2d6028d8f/tumblr_o5fm9uF1Ba1vn37d9o1_1280.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://40.media.tumblr.com/bc03ac44686d2cfd188c05d2d6028d8f/tumblr_o5fm9uF1Ba1vn37d9o1_1280.jpg" style="width:95%;height:auto"></a> //Click to see an enlarged image.// The marginal gloss at the top of page 37 refers to two historical scholars. Flavius ''Josephus'' was a Jewish aristocrat, priest, politican, and historian who lived circa 37 CE to circa 100 CE. His most famous work is the //Antiquities of the Jews//, a history of the Jewish people from Creation to the events just prior to the destruction of the temple in Jerusalem in 70 CE. The //Antiquities of the Jews// famously contains passages that seem to independently confirm the historical existence of Jesus of Nazareth, but the consensus of modern scholars is that these sections are later additions ("Josephus"). ''Michael Psellus'' lived nearly a millenium after Josephus (c.1018-c.1081 CE). In his day he was the foremost scholar of the Byzantine Empire; his writings include histories, commentaries on Aristotle and Plato, scientific treatises, as well as funeral orations and satirical poetry. Emperor Constantine IX awarded him the title //hypatos tōn philosophōn// ("highest of philosophers") (Browning). From here you can: <a href="https://docs.google.com/document/d/1S0iI2ORYd72fT8M42A_7zZPF_lm7PDyeA7EifPnQXKE/edit?usp=sharing" target="_blank">Access a printer friendly version of this poem.</a> [[Learn more about woodblock initials->Woodblock initials]] [[Close the book.->Closed]] [[Turn to the previous page.->Opening 24]] [[Turn to the next page.->Pages 38 and 39]] [[Skip ahead a bit.->Opening 34]] [[Flip back a bit.->Opening 16]]

Here you are looking at the end of part I of //The Rime of the Ancient Mariner// and the beginning of part II. The new section begins with a large woodblock initial //T//. The letter //d2// at the bottom of page 35 is a ''signature mark''. These marks are used when the individual parts of the book are assembled, to ensure the pages end up in the correct order ("Preservation/Rare Books"). <a href="http://41.media.tumblr.com/943b5478c370d1dd3299163d3111c6dd/tumblr_o5fm8rWipb1vn37d9o1_1280.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://41.media.tumblr.com/943b5478c370d1dd3299163d3111c6dd/tumblr_o5fm8rWipb1vn37d9o1_1280.jpg" style="width:95%;height:auto"></a> //Click to see an enlarged image.// Part I of //The Rime of the Ancient Mariner// famously ends with the seemingly motiveless slaying of the albatross by the mariner. This event was one of several key plot elements proposed by Coleridge's firend and collaborator William Wordsworth (Stillinger 18; Halmi, Magnuson, and Modiano 73; n. 5). From here you can: <a href="https://docs.google.com/document/d/1S0iI2ORYd72fT8M42A_7zZPF_lm7PDyeA7EifPnQXKE/edit?usp=sharing" target="_blank">Access a printer friendly version of this poem.</a> [[Learn more about woodblock initials->Woodblock initials]] [[Close the book.->Closed]] [[Turn to the previous page.->Opening 23]] [[Turn to the next page.->Opening 25]] [[Skip ahead a bit.->Opening 31]] [[Flip back a bit.->Opening 20]]

Here you find two pages from part II of //Christabel//. <a href="http://40.media.tumblr.com/87c2ff9ba778535579aa77c9f04f9e5f/tumblr_o5fm0g9cEI1vn37d9o1_1280.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://40.media.tumblr.com/87c2ff9ba778535579aa77c9f04f9e5f/tumblr_o5fm0g9cEI1vn37d9o1_1280.jpg" style="width:95%;height:auto"></a> //Click to see an enlarged image.// From here you can: <a hre="https://docs.google.com/document/d/1BMPMkBmOWBkuJzoJf6UDP-M1ObKi02ocwtl0mdUOMhM/edit?usp=sharing" target="_blank">Access a printer friendly version of this poem.</a> [[Close the book.->Closed]] [[Turn to the previous page.->Opening 17]] [[Turn to the next page.->Pages 22 and 23]] [[Skip ahead a bit.->Opening 28]] [[Flip back a bit.->Opening 11]]

Here you are looking at two pages of "The Rime of Ancient Mariner." One side is obscured by the presence of several loose slips of paper and bits of cardstock. <a href="http://40.media.tumblr.com/6bea2c6f6dac131c147289214a17da32/tumblr_o5fmer8DWr1vn37d9o1_1280.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://40.media.tumblr.com/6bea2c6f6dac131c147289214a17da32/tumblr_o5fmer8DWr1vn37d9o1_1280.jpg" style="width:95%;height:auto"></a> //Click to see an enlarged image.// From here you can: <a href="https://docs.google.com/document/d/1S0iI2ORYd72fT8M42A_7zZPF_lm7PDyeA7EifPnQXKE/edit?usp=sharing" target="_blank">Access a printer friendly version of this poem.</a> [[Set aside the loose items and examine the page underneath.->Opening 30a]] [[Take out the loose items and examine them.->Miscellaneous ephemera]] [[Close the book.->Closed]] [[Turn to the previous page.->Opening 29]] [[Turn to the next page.->Opening 31]] [[Skip ahead a bit.->Opening 38]] [[Flip back a bit.->Opening 22]]

Here you discover the beginning of part V of //The Rime of the Ancient Mariner//. The section starts with a large woodblock initial //O//. <a href="http://36.media.tumblr.com/d4fc26d946b2de3a9f6420c91fea778a/tumblr_o5fmcqdCBk1vn37d9o1_1280.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://36.media.tumblr.com/d4fc26d946b2de3a9f6420c91fea778a/tumblr_o5fmcqdCBk1vn37d9o1_1280.jpg" style="width:95%;height:auto"></a> //Click to see an enlarged image.// From here you can: <a href="https://docs.google.com/document/d/1S0iI2ORYd72fT8M42A_7zZPF_lm7PDyeA7EifPnQXKE/edit?usp=sharing" target="_blank">Access a printer friendly version of this poem.</a> [[Learn more about woodblock initials->Woodblock initials]] [[Close the book.->Closed]] [[Turn to the previous page.->Opening 27]] [[Turn to the next page.->Opening 29]] [[Skip ahead a bit.->Opening 32]] [[Flip back a bit.->Opening 22]]

Here you are looking at two pages from //The Rime of the Ancient Mariner//. <a href="http://36.media.tumblr.com/02e1414856f38187a45c589a2ac7bb8d/tumblr_o5fmgsG4ZD1vn37d9o1_1280.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://36.media.tumblr.com/02e1414856f38187a45c589a2ac7bb8d/tumblr_o5fmgsG4ZD1vn37d9o1_1280.jpg" style="width:95%;height:auto"></a> //Click to see an enlarged image.// From here you can: <a href="https://docs.google.com/document/d/1S0iI2ORYd72fT8M42A_7zZPF_lm7PDyeA7EifPnQXKE/edit?usp=sharing" target="_blank">Access a printer friendly version of this poem.</a> [[Close the book.->Closed]] [[Turn to the previous page.->Opening 32]] [[Turn to the next page.->Opening 34]] [[Skip ahead a bit.->Opening 40]] [[Flip back a bit.->Opening 19]]

You have discovered two pages of //The Rime of the Ancient Mariner//. The letter //d// at the bottom of page 33 is a ''signature mark''. These marks are used when the individual parts of the book are assembled, to ensure the pages end up in the correct order ("Preservation/Rare Books"). <a href="http://36.media.tumblr.com/d22ab51dc6d119047a79fc56ee4ca760/tumblr_o5fm7nykUQ1vn37d9o1_1280.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://36.media.tumblr.com/d22ab51dc6d119047a79fc56ee4ca760/tumblr_o5fm7nykUQ1vn37d9o1_1280.jpg" style="width:95%;height:auto"></a> //Click to see an enlarged image.// From here you can: <a href="https://docs.google.com/document/d/1S0iI2ORYd72fT8M42A_7zZPF_lm7PDyeA7EifPnQXKE/edit?usp=sharing" target="_blank">Access a printer friendly version of this poem.</a> [[Close the book.->Closed]] [[Turn to the previous page.->Opening 22]] [[Turn to the next page.->Opening 24]] [[Skip ahead a bit.->Opening 29]] [[Flip back a bit.->Opening 18]]

Here you are looking at two pages of //The Rime of the Ancient Mariner//. <a href="http://40.media.tumblr.com/01d6677b04027a7ea8ea4c9efd5c434a/tumblr_o5uv6mp3Ec1vn37d9o1_1280.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://40.media.tumblr.com/01d6677b04027a7ea8ea4c9efd5c434a/tumblr_o5uv6mp3Ec1vn37d9o1_1280.jpg" style="width:95%;height:auto"></a> //Click to see an enlarged image.// The original version of //Rime//, appearing in //Lyrical Ballads//, included four more stanzas between the second and third stanzas of page 47: Listen, O listen, thou Wedding-guest! "Marinere! thou hast thy will: "For that, which comes out of thine eye, doth make 'My body and soul to be still." Never sadder tale was told To a man of woman born: Sadder and wiser thou wedding-guest! Thou'll rise to morrow morn. Never sadder tale was heard By a man of woman born: The Marineres all return'd to work As silent as beforne. The Marineres all 'gan pull the ropes, But look at me they n'old: Thought I, I am as thin as air— They cannot me behold. (//Poetical Works// 523-4; Stillinger 175) From here you can: <a href="https://docs.google.com/document/d/1S0iI2ORYd72fT8M42A_7zZPF_lm7PDyeA7EifPnQXKE/edit?usp=sharing" target="_blank">Access a printer friendly version of this poem.</a> [[Close the book.->Closed]] [[Turn to the previous page.->Opening 28]] [[Turn to the next page.->Opening 30]] [[Skip ahead a bit.->Opening 40]] [[Flip back a bit.->Opening 19]]

Here you are looking at two pages from //The Rime of the Ancient Mariner//. The //e2// at the bottom of page 65 is a ''signature mark''. These marks are used when the individual parts of the book are assembled, to ensure the pages end up in the correct order ("Preservation/Rare Books"). <a href="http://40.media.tumblr.com/9dca907ff0b382065a5e430748df7c6c/tumblr_o5fmfvH7sg1vn37d9o1_1280.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://40.media.tumblr.com/9dca907ff0b382065a5e430748df7c6c/tumblr_o5fmfvH7sg1vn37d9o1_1280.jpg" style="width:95%;height:auto"></a> //Click to see an enlarged image.// From here you can: <a href="https://docs.google.com/document/d/1S0iI2ORYd72fT8M42A_7zZPF_lm7PDyeA7EifPnQXKE/edit?usp=sharing" target="_blank">Access a printer friendly version of this poem.</a> [[Close the book.->Closed]] [[Turn to the previous page.->Opening 30]] [[Turn to the next page.->Opening 32]] [[Skip ahead a bit.->Opening 37]] [[Flip back a bit.->Opening 24]]

Here you have found the end of part III and beginning of part IV of //The Rime of the Ancient Mariner//. Part IV opens with a large woodblock initial //I//. <a href="http://36.media.tumblr.com/3425bb9cf4c581f4bd2459d6790851b0/tumblr_o5fmax9F6P1vn37d9o1_1280.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://36.media.tumblr.com/3425bb9cf4c581f4bd2459d6790851b0/tumblr_o5fmax9F6P1vn37d9o1_1280.jpg" style="width:95%;height:auto"></a> //Click to see an enlarged image.// The first ''marginal gloss'' on page 40, "No twilight within the courts of the sun," is the only gloss that didn't appear in the 1817 edition of //Rime//. It subsequently appeared in all other editions published in Coleridge's lifetime (Halmi, Magnuson, and Modiano 73; n. 5). Several draft versions of this gloss appear in various Coleridge manuscripts: "No Twilight within the Courts of the Sun." "Between the Tropics there is no Twilight. As the Sun's last Segment dips down, and the evening Gun is fired, the Constellations appear arrayed." "No Twilight where there is no Latitude nor yet on either side withing the Park & Race-course of the Sun." "Within the Tropics there is no Twilight. At the moment, the //second//, that the Sun sinks, the Stars appear all at once as if at the word of command announced by the evening Gun, in our W. India Islands." "Within the Tropics there is no Twi-light. As the Sun sinks, the Evening Gun is fired, and the starry Heaven is at once over all, like men in ambush that have been listening for the signal—& Hark!—//now//." "No Twilight within the course of the Sun." (Stillinger 168-9) From here you can: <a href="https://docs.google.com/document/d/1S0iI2ORYd72fT8M42A_7zZPF_lm7PDyeA7EifPnQXKE/edit?usp=sharing" target="_blank">Access a printer friendly version of this poem.</a> [[Learn more about woodblock initials->Woodblock initials]] [[Close the book.->Closed]] [[Turn to the previous page.->Pages 38 and 39]] [[Turn to the next page.->Opening 27]] [[Skip ahead a bit.->Opening 30]] [[Flip back a bit.->Opening 21]]

Here you have found the conclusion to //The Rime of the Ancient Mariner//. <a href="http://41.media.tumblr.com/c719f507656520e69d449b1a94a0d146/tumblr_o5fmi8Wevt1vn37d9o1_1280.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://41.media.tumblr.com/c719f507656520e69d449b1a94a0d146/tumblr_o5fmi8Wevt1vn37d9o1_1280.jpg" style="width:95%;height:auto"></a> //Click to see an enlarged image.// From here you can: <a href="https://docs.google.com/document/d/1S0iI2ORYd72fT8M42A_7zZPF_lm7PDyeA7EifPnQXKE/edit?usp=sharing" target="_blank">Access a printer friendly version of this poem.</a> [[Close the book.->Closed]] [[Turn to the previous page.->Opening 33]] [[Turn to the next page.->Opening 35]] [[Skip ahead a bit.->Opening 43]] [[Flip back a bit.->Opening 25]]

Here you are looking at two pages from //The Rime of the Ancient Mariner//. <a href="http://40.media.tumblr.com/c64ea6b07da949fa5cce2a7e9dcc65b0/tumblr_o5fmbw7NTA1vn37d9o1_1280.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://40.media.tumblr.com/c64ea6b07da949fa5cce2a7e9dcc65b0/tumblr_o5fmbw7NTA1vn37d9o1_1280.jpg" style="width:95%;height:auto"></a> //Click to see an enlarged image.// From here you can: <a href="https://docs.google.com/document/d/1S0iI2ORYd72fT8M42A_7zZPF_lm7PDyeA7EifPnQXKE/edit?usp=sharing" target="_blank">Access a printer friendly version of this poem.</a> [[Close the book.->Closed]] [[Turn to the previous page.->Opening 26]] [[Turn to the next page.->Opening 28]] [[Skip ahead a bit.->Opening 35]] [[Flip back a bit.->Opening 17]]

Here you have found the beginning of "A Fragment of a Sexton's Tale." The first page of the poem is decorated with an elaborate knotted vinework border and the text begins with a lavish woodblock initial //T//. <a href="http://40.media.tumblr.com/781f2f846de47f28c9bc365edede47b2/tumblr_o5fmkwSouY1vn37d9o1_1280.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://40.media.tumblr.com/781f2f846de47f28c9bc365edede47b2/tumblr_o5fmkwSouY1vn37d9o1_1280.jpg" style="width:95%;height:auto"></a> //Click to see an enlarged image.// This poem is sometimes titled "The Three Graves" or "Continuation of //The Three Graves//. The original version of this poem was begun by William Wordsworth. Coleridge took over the task of completing the poem in 1979, but he never finished it ("The Later Poetry" 93). The poem is written in a ballad-form traditional to English folk poetry (Fulford 46). During Coleridge's life he oversaw publication of this work in the periodical //The Friend// (21 Sept. 1809), //Sibylline Leaves// (1817), and his //Poetical Works// (1828, 1829, 1834) (//Poetical Works// 463-3). All of these versions were prefaced by a lengthy explanatory note explaining the thinking behind the work and summarizing the sections written by Wordsworth, which were omitted (464-5). Coleridge mentions two sources of the supernatural/psychological elements to the story: "I had been reading Bryan Edwards's account of the effects of the //Oby// Witch-craft on the Negros in the West Indies, and Hearne's deeply interesting Anecdotes of the similar workings on the imagination of the Copper Indians... I conceived the design of shewing that instances of this kind are not peculiar to savage or barbarous tribes." (466) John Worthen considers this work and "The Ballad of the Dark Ladié" (later in this collection) to be undervalued parts of Coleridge's oeuvre (21). From here you can: <a href="https://docs.google.com/document/d/1WFu8pesC9YLNbXy3fVMrTjcufCZpdsCKsYXrLhMUAHo/edit?usp=sharing" target="_blank">Access a printer friendly version of this poem that includes Wordsworth's passages.</a> [[Learn more about woodblock initials->Woodblock initials]] [[Close the book.->Closed]] [[Turn to the previous page.->Opening 34]] [[Turn to the next page.->Opening 36]] [[Skip ahead a bit.->Opening 38]] [[Flip back a bit.->Opening 21]]

Here you are looking at the end of part VI and beginning of part VII of //The Rime of the Ancient Mariner//. Part VI opens with a large woodblock initial //T//. <a href="http://36.media.tumblr.com/901545b431a7ea8eabeb1417855e5c56/tumblr_o5urkvJwQk1vn37d9o1_1280.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://36.media.tumblr.com/901545b431a7ea8eabeb1417855e5c56/tumblr_o5urkvJwQk1vn37d9o1_1280.jpg" style="width:95%;height:auto"></a> //Click to see an enlarged image.// The original published version of //Rime// (//Lyrical Ballads//, 1798), includes a stanza between the first and second stanzas of page 53: The vanish'd all the lovely lights; The bodies rose anew: With silent pace, each to his place, Came back the ghastly crew. The wind, that shade nor motion made, On me alone it blew. (//Poetical Works// 528; Stillinger 180) From here you can: <a href="https://docs.google.com/document/d/1S0iI2ORYd72fT8M42A_7zZPF_lm7PDyeA7EifPnQXKE/edit?usp=sharing" target="_blank">Access a printer friendly version of this poem.</a> [[Learn more about woodblock initials->Woodblock initials]] [[Close the book.->Closed]] [[Turn to the previous page.->Opening 31]] [[Turn to the next page.->Opening 33]] [[Skip ahead a bit.->Opening 42]] [[Flip back a bit.->Opening 28]]

Here you have found part of "A Fragment of a Sexton's Tale." <a href="http://41.media.tumblr.com/f2a0eaeb7cc6accd0c179078c7667a5b/tumblr_o5fmpaPxaz1vn37d9o1_1280.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://41.media.tumblr.com/f2a0eaeb7cc6accd0c179078c7667a5b/tumblr_o5fmpaPxaz1vn37d9o1_1280.jpg" style="width:95%;height:auto"></a> //Click to see an enlarged image.// From here you can: <a href="https://docs.google.com/document/d/1WFu8pesC9YLNbXy3fVMrTjcufCZpdsCKsYXrLhMUAHo/edit?usp=sharing" target="_blank">Access a printer friendly version of this poem.</a> [[Close the book.->Closed]] [[Turn to the previous page.->Opening 39]] [[Turn to the next page.->Opening 41]] [[Skip ahead a bit.->Opening 47]] [[Flip back a bit.->Opening 27]]

Here you have found the end of the third part of "A Fragment of a Sexton's Tale" and the beginning of the fourth part. The latter begins with an elaborate woodblock initial //T//. The //f// at the bottom of page 65 is a ''signature mark''. These marks are used when the individual parts of the book are assembled, to ensure the pages end up in the correct order ("Preservation/Rare Books"). <a href="http://40.media.tumblr.com/25fcdb933cb164195fa5bbb83f8ed15a/tumblr_o5fmnhO3WG1vn37d9o1_1280.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://40.media.tumblr.com/25fcdb933cb164195fa5bbb83f8ed15a/tumblr_o5fmnhO3WG1vn37d9o1_1280.jpg" style="width:95%;height:auto"></a> //Click to see an enlarged image.// Until you reach this point in the text, it is not obvious that the preceding section was part III of the poem. Parts I and II, written by William Wordsworth, are omitted as has been the introduction that Coleridge wrote for the piece ("The Later Poetry" 98; //Poetical Works// 464-6). From here you can: [[Learn more about woodblock initials->Woodblock initials]] <a href="https://docs.google.com/document/d/1WFu8pesC9YLNbXy3fVMrTjcufCZpdsCKsYXrLhMUAHo/edit?usp=sharing" target="_blank">Access a printer friendly version of this poem.</a> [[Close the book.->Closed]] [[Turn to the previous page.->Opening 37]] [[Turn to the next page.->Opening 39]] [[Skip ahead a bit.->Opening 45]] [[Flip back a bit.->Opening 26]]

Here you are looking at two pages from "A Fragment of a Sexton's Tale." <a href="http://40.media.tumblr.com/b9155b62a189ae066b4fd0454f143008/tumblr_o5fmmpLDYT1vn37d9o1_1280.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://40.media.tumblr.com/b9155b62a189ae066b4fd0454f143008/tumblr_o5fmmpLDYT1vn37d9o1_1280.jpg" style="width:95%;height:auto"></a> //Click to see an enlarged image.// From here you can: <a href="https://docs.google.com/document/d/1WFu8pesC9YLNbXy3fVMrTjcufCZpdsCKsYXrLhMUAHo/edit?usp=sharing" target="_blank">Access a printer friendly version of this poem.</a> [[Close the book.->Closed]] [[Turn to the previous page.->Opening 36]] [[Turn to the next page.->Opening 38]] [[Skip ahead a bit.->Opening 48]] [[Flip back a bit.->Opening 33]]

Here you have found the first two pages of the poem "Love." The first page of the poem includes an elaborate floral border and a lavish woodblock initial //A//. <a href="http://40.media.tumblr.com/83ff1f84798164f29bb148b96b200b98/tumblr_o5fmqzpyyK1vn37d9o1_1280.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://40.media.tumblr.com/83ff1f84798164f29bb148b96b200b98/tumblr_o5fmqzpyyK1vn37d9o1_1280.jpg" style="width:95%;height:auto"></a> //Click to see an enlarged image.// "Love" was written in 1799, upon Coleridge meeting and becoming smitten with Sara Hutchinson (an infatuation that would lead three years later to the poem "Dejection: An Ode") ("The Later Poetry" 89). The first printing of this work happened simultaneously in two newspaper, //The Morning Post// and //The Courier//, where Coleridge stated it was the introduction to a longer work. It was frequently reprinted thereafter, appearing in three editions of //Lyrical Ballads// (1800, 1802 and 1805), again in //The Courier//(1812), //Sibylline Leaves// (1817), Coleridge's //Poetical Works// and many other periodicals and anthologies of the day (//Poetical Works// 794-6). This poem served as a model for John Keats' work "La Belle Dame sans Merci" (Gardner 23). From here you can: <a href="https://docs.google.com/document/d/15xItXCsq7uTY5JiUJq-pcmfnXm9nDdz15LdB_YsMCu4/edit?usp=sharing" target="_blank">Access a printer friendly version of this poem.</a> [[Learn more about woodblock initials->Woodblock initials]] [[Close the book.->Closed]] [[Turn to the previous page.->Opening 41]] [[Turn to the next page.->Opening 43]] [[Skip ahead a bit.->Opening 45]] [[Flip back a bit.->Opening 31]]

Here you are looking at the second and third pages of "Love." <a href="http://40.media.tumblr.com/c89a04e13d1ac23b7868b659b2b0d906/tumblr_o5fmrqUEl41vn37d9o1_1280.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://40.media.tumblr.com/c89a04e13d1ac23b7868b659b2b0d906/tumblr_o5fmrqUEl41vn37d9o1_1280.jpg" style="width:95%;height:auto"></a> //Click to see an enlarged image.// From here you can: <a href="https://docs.google.com/document/d/15xItXCsq7uTY5JiUJq-pcmfnXm9nDdz15LdB_YsMCu4/edit?usp=sharing" target="_blank">Access a printer friendly version of this poem.</a> [[Close the book.->Closed]] [[Turn to the previous page.->Opening 42]] [[Turn to the next page.->Opening 44]] [[Skip ahead a bit.->Opening 50]] [[Flip back a bit.->Opening 38]]

Here you have found two pages from "A Fragment of a Sexton's Tale." <a href="http://41.media.tumblr.com/08934d98db53acafd55d1e01b6197470/tumblr_o5fmls5Wpu1vn37d9o1_1280.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://41.media.tumblr.com/08934d98db53acafd55d1e01b6197470/tumblr_o5fmls5Wpu1vn37d9o1_1280.jpg" style="width:95%;height:auto"></a> //Click to see an enlarged image.// From here you can: <a href="https://docs.google.com/document/d/1WFu8pesC9YLNbXy3fVMrTjcufCZpdsCKsYXrLhMUAHo/edit?usp=sharing" target="_blank">Access a printer friendly version of this poem.</a> [[Close the book.->Closed]] [[Turn to the previous page.->Opening 35]] [[Turn to the next page.->Opening 37]] [[Skip ahead a bit.->Opening 44]] [[Flip back a bit.->Opening 31]]

Here you are looking at the last page of "Love" and the beginning of "The Ballad of the Dark Ladié. A Fragment." The latter poem begins with a lavish woodblock initial //B//. It also begins with an elaborate grapevine border, similar but not identical to the borders at the beginning of part I of //The Rime of the Ancient Mariner// and the last work in the collection, "Alice Du Clos." <a href="http://41.media.tumblr.com/8f22bfe1e544c175fae7823f917f3af1/tumblr_o5fmsyi0Zt1vn37d9o1_1280.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://41.media.tumblr.com/8f22bfe1e544c175fae7823f917f3af1/tumblr_o5fmsyi0Zt1vn37d9o1_1280.jpg" style="width:95%;height:auto"></a> //Click to see an enlarged image.// Coleridge began this work in early to mid 1798, after //The Rime of the Ancient Mariner// and at the same time as the composition of //Christabel// (//Poetical Works// 685-6). It was not printed until it was collected in Coleridge's 1834 //Poetical Works//, the last version the poet worked on before his death. From here you can: [[Learn more about woodblock initials->Woodblock initials]] <a href="" target="_blank">Access a printer friendly version of this poem.</a> [[Close the book.->Closed]] [[Turn to the previous page.->Opening 43]] [[Turn to the next page.->Opening 45]] [[Skip ahead a bit.->Opening 49]] [[Flip back a bit.->Opening 32]]

Here you have found the second and third pages of "The Improvisatore." <a href="http://41.media.tumblr.com/b9d9f75d57a969eef9ce133d913c21c6/tumblr_o5fmxlzVYf1vn37d9o1_1280.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://41.media.tumblr.com/b9d9f75d57a969eef9ce133d913c21c6/tumblr_o5fmxlzVYf1vn37d9o1_1280.jpg" style="width:95%;height:auto"></a> //Click to see an enlarged image.// All versions of this work printed in Coleridge's lifetime were accompanied by a dramatic introduction more than twice the length of the poem itself. The introduction sets the scene of a spacious drawing room where Catharine, Eliza, and their unnamed Friend are discussing old love ballads. They are briefly joined by Eliza's brother Lucius. Near the end of their conversation Catherine despairs of ever finding a man who will love her in old age as well as in the blossom of her youth. After a profound silence falls on the trio, the poem itself begins (//Poetical Works// 1251-4). From here you can: <a href="https://docs.google.com/document/d/1xdWGj61_79mhN7Ve-tpmlUTXUCfsPeBH47D9Oa7a-Cc/edit?usp=sharing" target="_blank">Access a printer friendly version of this poem, complete with the introduction.</a> [[Close the book.->Closed]] [[Turn to the previous page.->Opening 47]] [[Turn to the next page.->Opening 49]] [[Skip ahead a bit.->Opening 54]] [[Flip back a bit.->Opening 41]]

Here you are looking at two pages from "A Fragment of a Sexton's Tale." The //f2// at the bottom of page 65 is a ''signature mark''. These marks are used when the individual parts of the book are assembled, to ensure the pages end up in the correct order ("Preservation/Rare Books"). <a href="http://40.media.tumblr.com/81fe2429f1ca3b2ad09c5bbc4adc200c/tumblr_o5fmogdLQU1vn37d9o1_1280.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://40.media.tumblr.com/81fe2429f1ca3b2ad09c5bbc4adc200c/tumblr_o5fmogdLQU1vn37d9o1_1280.jpg" style="width:95%;height:auto"></a> //Click to see an enlarged image.// From here you can: <a href="https://docs.google.com/document/d/1WFu8pesC9YLNbXy3fVMrTjcufCZpdsCKsYXrLhMUAHo/edit?usp=sharing" target="_blank">Access a printer friendly version of this poem.</a> [[Close the book.->Closed]] [[Turn to the previous page.->Opening 38]] [[Turn to the next page.->Opening 40]] [[Skip ahead a bit.->Opening 44]] [[Flip back a bit.->Opening 24]]

Here you are looking at the last two pages of "The Ballad of the Dark Ladié." <a href="http://41.media.tumblr.com/3a53049c9f142854a1e3058987e8747b/tumblr_o5fmtpzFaZ1vn37d9o1_1280.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://41.media.tumblr.com/3a53049c9f142854a1e3058987e8747b/tumblr_o5fmtpzFaZ1vn37d9o1_1280.jpg" style="width:95%;height:auto"></a> //Click to see an enlarged image.// The two lines of small diamonds here are usually represented in other editions as rows of asterisks. In the earliest known manuscript copy of this work Coleridge appends the lines "A Stanza, which has dropt from/my Memory" immediately after the after the first asterisk line. A second manuscript version instead changes the row of asterisks to "* * * —a stanza wanting" and adds "Cætera desunt." (Latin for "the rest is missing") to the end of the work (//Poetical Works// 688-9). From here you can: <a href="" target="_blank">Access a printer friendly version of this poem.</a> [[Close the book.->Closed]] [[Turn to the previous page.->Opening 44]] [[Turn to the next page.->Opening 46]] [[Skip ahead a bit.->Opening 54]] [[Flip back a bit.->Opening 40]]

Here you are looking at the last two pages of "A Fragment of a Sexton's Tale." <a href="http://36.media.tumblr.com/ad7dacd93adface74b05bea7cf0d9ead/tumblr_o5fmq2gART1vn37d9o1_1280.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://36.media.tumblr.com/ad7dacd93adface74b05bea7cf0d9ead/tumblr_o5fmq2gART1vn37d9o1_1280.jpg" style="width:95%;height:auto"></a> //Click to see an enlarged image.// The Latin of the first line of the note in red ink translates as "the rest of the poem was postponed until a future time" (Worthen 21). The second line is Macbeth's soliloquy in Act 5, Scene 5 of the play that bears his name, though Shakespeare's version lacks the exclamation points. From here you can: <a href="https://docs.google.com/document/d/1WFu8pesC9YLNbXy3fVMrTjcufCZpdsCKsYXrLhMUAHo/edit?usp=sharing" target="_blank">Access a printer friendly version of this poem.</a> [[Close the book.->Closed]] [[Turn to the previous page.->Opening 40]] [[Turn to the next page.->Opening 42]] [[Skip ahead a bit.->Opening 46]] [[Flip back a bit.->Opening 35]]

Here you are looking at the second (final) page of "Youth and Age" and the beginning of "The Improvisatore." A lovely vinework border decorates the first page of "The Improvisatore" and the poem begins with a large woodblock initial //Y//. <a href="http://40.media.tumblr.com/67110239883286576fdfcf1c88e0ca9a/tumblr_o5fmwdWKxS1vn37d9o1_1280.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://40.media.tumblr.com/67110239883286576fdfcf1c88e0ca9a/tumblr_o5fmwdWKxS1vn37d9o1_1280.jpg" style="width:95%;height:auto"></a> //Click to see an enlarged image.// The history of "Youth and Age" demonstrates the possible complexity of composition and publication of even a very short poem. J. C. C. Mays documents no less than 13 manuscript versions and five published versions between 1823 and 1832(//Poetical Works// 1195-9). The earliest published version was a rogue operation; "Youth and Age" and several other Coleridge pieces (including "Work without Hope," later in this collection) appeared in the anthology //The Bijou for 1828// without Coleridge's permission (Halmi, Magnuson, and Modiano 222; n 1). Additionally, Coleridge used the last nine lines of "Youth and Age" as part of a sonnet called "The Old Man's Sigh," which appeared in June 1832 issue of //Blackwood's Magazine// under a brief essay by Coleridge called "What is an English Sonnet?" (//Poetical Works// 1199). In this essay Coleridge introduces "The Old Man's Sigh" by claiming "the following Out-slough or hypertrophic Stanza of a certain poem called "Youth and Age" having by a judicial Ligature of the Verse maker's own tying detached itself and dropt off from the poem aforesaid assumes the name and rank of an integral Animal and standing the test of counting the lines twice seven exactly is a legitimate English Sonnet" ("What Is an English Sonnet?" 956). For information on "The Improvisatore" please turn to the next page. From here you can: [[Learn more about woodblock initials->Woodblock initials]] <a href="https://docs.google.com/document/d/18U8LF7fYQFwL3mQTRd_qEOneO5_uhdbmCk5j29pljuk/edit?usp=sharing" target="_blank">Access a printer friendly version of "Youth and Age."</a> [[Close the book.->Closed]] [[Turn to the previous page.->Opening 46]] [[Turn to the next page.->Opening 48]] [[Skip ahead a bit.->Opening 51]] [[Flip back a bit.->Opening 43]]

Here you are looking at the poem "Names. From Lessing." on the left and the beginning of the poem "Youth and Age" on the right. "Youth and Age" features a decorative floral border and both poems begin with large woodblock initials. <a href="http://36.media.tumblr.com/8246dff72555340fd971395a0481e626/tumblr_o5fmv4zTv61vn37d9o1_1280.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://36.media.tumblr.com/8246dff72555340fd971395a0481e626/tumblr_o5fmv4zTv61vn37d9o1_1280.jpg" style="width:95%;height:auto"></a> //Click to see an enlarged image.// Versions of "Names" appeared in the newspapers the //Morning Post//(1799) and the //Courier//(1800). It was also later anthologized in the //Poetical Register for 1803// (where it was signed "Harley.| Philadelphia"(!)) and //The Keepsake for 1829//. "Names" was first collected in the works of Coleridge in 1834 (//Poetical Works// 774-5). The subtitle "From Lessing" refers to German writer and philosopher Gotthold Ephraim Lessing, as the piece is a loose translation of a German poem by the philospher (Cottle 288). A draft biography of Lessing is recorded in Coleridge's notebooks, but it was never readied for publication (Worthen 45; Hamilton 172). Coleridge experimented with a wide array of classical appellations to fit the meter and tone of the work. Various versions use Iphegenia, Clelia, Laura, Daphne, Delia, Carina, and Dorimæna in addition to the names presented here (//Poetical Works// 775-6). The version to appear in this collection matches the manuscript version preserved by Coleridge's printer Joseph Cottle in his //Reminiscences of Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Robert Southey// (289; Stillinger 60). The pairing of "Names" with "Youth and Age" in this collection seems to be based on the theme of Coleridge's struggles to write verse after the peaking of poetical powers in 1798. Please turn to the next page for information on "Youth and Age." From here you can: <a href="https://docs.google.com/document/d/1k3QyxaLEWjqdfVmsLSLnNk0fax8m-nFKW9_PmOwIfiM/edit?usp=sharing" target="_blank">Access a printer friendly version of "Names."</a> <a href="https://docs.google.com/document/d/18U8LF7fYQFwL3mQTRd_qEOneO5_uhdbmCk5j29pljuk/edit?usp=sharing" target="_blank">Access a printer friendly version of "Youth and Age."</a> [[Learn more about woodblock initials.->Woodblock initials]] [[Close the book.->Closed]] [[Turn to the previous page.->Opening 45]] [[Turn to the next page.->Opening 47]] [[Skip ahead a bit.->Opening 52]] [[Flip back a bit.->Opening 39]]

Here you have discovered two pages from the middle of the poem "The Garden of Boccaccio." <a href="http://40.media.tumblr.com/868a3fb6ae192ef676ebfd771eabba5b/tumblr_o5fmzlpft41vn37d9o1_1280.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://40.media.tumblr.com/868a3fb6ae192ef676ebfd771eabba5b/tumblr_o5fmzlpft41vn37d9o1_1280.jpg" style="width:95%;height:auto"></a> //Click to see an enlarged image.// "The Garden of Boccaccio" was written in the second half of 1828, just in time for it to appear in the anthology //The Keepsake for 1829// (//Poetical Works// 1290-1). In the //The Keepsake// it was accompanied by a black and white engraving of watercolor painting illustrating a scene from Boccaccio's //Decameron//. From here you can: <a href="https://docs.google.com/document/d/1-3uQz3v-6Zejp6BppjL2LzUXXDMz1V06bPD6Q1RXsNk/edit?usp=sharing" target="_blank">Access a printer friendly version of this poem.</a> [[Close the book.->Closed]] [[Turn to the previous page.->Opening 49]] [[Turn to the next page.->Opening 51]] [[Skip ahead a bit.->Opening 54]] [[Flip back a bit.->Opening 46]]

You have found the short poem "Work without Hope" and the first page of "The Garden of Boccaccio." Both poems begin with lavish woodblock initials, while "Boccaccio" is bordered by a knotted vinework. <a href="http://40.media.tumblr.com/8a8754651798deadbb8173b3ed48fee7/tumblr_o5fmyleBJ61vn37d9o1_1280.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://40.media.tumblr.com/8a8754651798deadbb8173b3ed48fee7/tumblr_o5fmyleBJ61vn37d9o1_1280.jpg" style="width:95%;height:auto"></a> //Click to see an enlarged image.// "Work without Hope" was composed in ironic commemoration of the ten anniversary of his residing with the Gillman family as a result of his chronic physical and mental health problems (Halmi, Magnuson, and Modiano 207; n 1). Along with "Youth and Age," appearing earlier in this collection, "Work without Hope" was one of several poems anthologized in //The Bijou for 1828// without Coleridge's permission (//Poetical Works// 1228). Two early publications of this poem erroneously printed the word "stags" instead of "slugs" in the first line, which Coleridge saw as being too grand for the petty tone of the poem (Halmi, Magnuson, and Modiano 207; n 2). The Oxford English Dictionary lists the eleventh line of this work as the first appearance of the word "unbrightened" (Worthen 39). For notes on "The Garden of Boccaccio," please turn to the next page. From here you can: [[Learn more about woodblock initials->Woodblock initials]] <a href="https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Zwn3ms30c6bCy5TfSt4tslTIcijVwJDJlPYVA4D_nD4/edit?usp=sharing" target="_blank">Access a printer friendly version of "Work without Hope."</a> <a href="https://docs.google.com/document/d/1-3uQz3v-6Zejp6BppjL2LzUXXDMz1V06bPD6Q1RXsNk/edit?usp=sharing" target="_blank">Access a printer friendly version of "The Garden of Boccaccio."</a> [[Close the book.->Closed]] [[Turn to the previous page.->Opening 48]] [[Turn to the next page.->Opening 50]] [[Skip ahead a bit.->Opening 53]] [[Flip back a bit.->Opening 29]]

Here you are looking at two pages from the poem "Alice Du Clos." <a href="http://40.media.tumblr.com/a91d01259adcf73aa52be03240672819/tumblr_o5fn3evpAe1vn37d9o1_1280.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://40.media.tumblr.com/a91d01259adcf73aa52be03240672819/tumblr_o5fn3evpAe1vn37d9o1_1280.jpg" style="width:95%;height:auto"></a> //Click to see an enlarged image.// From here you can: <a href="https://docs.google.com/document/d/1-IB8ixKRR-5DkzV3Vby0koYRehusORF3b2ObrygDrgE/edit?usp=sharing" target="_blank">Access a printer-friendly copy of this poem.</a> [[Close the book.->Closed]] [[Turn to the previous page.->Opening 53]] [[Turn to the next page.->Opening 55]] [[Skip ahead a bit.->Opening 56]] [[Flip back a bit.->Opening 49]]

You have found the beginning of the poem "Alice Du Clos." Red ink is used for the epigraph that introduces the poem, while the grapevine border ornament used here is identical to that employed at the beginning of both //The Rime of the Ancient Mariner// and "The Ballad of the Dark Ladié." The woodblock initial //T// that begins the poem was a serious design problem for printer William Morris; he created no less than 34 different designs (Johnson xi). <a href="http://40.media.tumblr.com/49a052ef2c9935e31eeb0ffda8476f87/tumblr_o5fn1l4QUq1vn37d9o1_1280.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://40.media.tumblr.com/49a052ef2c9935e31eeb0ffda8476f87/tumblr_o5fn1l4QUq1vn37d9o1_1280.jpg" style="width:95%;height:auto"></a> //Click to see an enlarged image.// "Alice Du Clos" was first published in the final edition of COleridge's //Poetical Works// he edited prior to his death. Composed around 1827 or 1828, it represents a return to experimentation with the ballad form that characterized much of his work decades earlier (Holmes n. 36). And like many other such experiments, Coleridge was never satisfied with any conclusion he wrote (Paley 93-94). John Worthen scorns this work as a "fake gothic ballad" of "main use today, perhaps, is to demonstrate why he was so right not to finish //Christabel//" (Bloom and Marson 135; Worthen 40). From here you can: [[Learn more about woodblock initials->Woodblock initials]] <a href="https://docs.google.com/document/d/1-IB8ixKRR-5DkzV3Vby0koYRehusORF3b2ObrygDrgE/edit?usp=sharing" target="_blank">Access a printer-friendly copy of this poem.</a> [[Close the book.->Closed]] [[Turn to the previous page.->Opening 51]] [[Turn to the next page.->Opening 53]] [[Skip ahead a bit.->Opening 56]] [[Flip back a bit.->Opening 48]]

Here you have found the conclusion of "The Garden of Boccaccio" as well as the short poem "The Knight's Tomb." The latter begins with an elorate woodblock initial //W//. <a href="http://41.media.tumblr.com/d89dc7e090a4d69ed5f848a5ab819b34/tumblr_o5fn0npOFD1vn37d9o1_1280.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://41.media.tumblr.com/d89dc7e090a4d69ed5f848a5ab819b34/tumblr_o5fn0npOFD1vn37d9o1_1280.jpg" style="width:95%;height:auto"></a> //Click to see an enlarged image.// This short poem was intended by Coleridge to be the first stanza of a ballad titled "The Knightly Sword," but there is no evidence to suggest he ever wrote any additional lines (//Poetical Works// 936). A slightly different version of the last three lines of this poem were first published as a quotation in chapter 8 of Sir Walter Scott's novel //Ivanhoe: A Romance// (//Poetical Works// 936). In an endnote Scott describes Coleridge as a man "whose Muse so often tantalizes with fragments which indicate her powers, while the manner in which she flings them from her betrays her caprice, yet whose unfinished sketches display more talent than the laboured masterpieces of others" (n. 17). From here you can: [[Learn more about woodblock intials->Woodblock initials]] <a href="https://docs.google.com/document/d/1-3uQz3v-6Zejp6BppjL2LzUXXDMz1V06bPD6Q1RXsNk/edit?usp=sharing" target="_blank">Access a printer friendly version of "The Garden of Boccaccio."</a> <a href="https://docs.google.com/document/d/1IGJGMTHwr_sr7y3bC59RKDlMlpNSF3p0gn4sRenQaUU/edit?usp=sharing" target="_blank">Access a printer friendly version of "The Knight's Tomb."</a> [[Close the book.->Closed]] [[Turn to the previous page.->Opening 50]] [[Turn to the next page.->Opening 52]] [[Skip ahead a bit.->Opening 55]] [[Flip back a bit.->Opening 37]]

Here you find two pages of the poem "Alice Du Clos." <a href="http://41.media.tumblr.com/624c36435f54a48e1ab15625a163ac19/tumblr_o5fn2fHvoe1vn37d9o1_1280.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://41.media.tumblr.com/624c36435f54a48e1ab15625a163ac19/tumblr_o5fn2fHvoe1vn37d9o1_1280.jpg" style="width:95%;height:auto"></a> //Click to see an enlarged image.// From here you can: <a href="https://docs.google.com/document/d/1-IB8ixKRR-5DkzV3Vby0koYRehusORF3b2ObrygDrgE/edit?usp=sharing" target="_blank">Access a printer-friendly copy of this poem.</a> The "Ellen" mentioned on the first line of the last stanza of page 95 seems to be a mistake. Coleridge apparently forgot the name of his protagonist at one point and the error was never corrected (Worthen 40). Coleridge may be making an unconscious connection between Alice here and Ellen of "A Fragment of a Sexton's Tale," which appears earlier in this collection ("The Later Poetry" 93). [[Close the book.->Closed]] [[Turn to the previous page.->Opening 52]] [[Turn to the next page.->Opening 54]] [[Skip ahead a bit.->Opening 57]] [[Flip back a bit.->Opening 50]]

Here you have reached the end of the poem "Alice Du Clos." <a href="http://41.media.tumblr.com/efa1aee342c48f6d40f26509ae92654f/tumblr_o5fn46xhYz1vn37d9o1_1280.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://41.media.tumblr.com/efa1aee342c48f6d40f26509ae92654f/tumblr_o5fn46xhYz1vn37d9o1_1280.jpg" style="width:95%;height:auto"></a> //Click to see an enlarged image.// From here you can: <a href="https://docs.google.com/document/d/1-IB8ixKRR-5DkzV3Vby0koYRehusORF3b2ObrygDrgE/edit?usp=sharing" target="_blank">Access a printer-friendly copy of this poem.</a> [[Close the book.->Closed]] [[Turn to the previous page.->Opening 54]] [[Turn to the next page.->Opening 56]] [[Skip ahead a bit.->Opening 57]] [[Flip back a bit.->Opening 51]]

You have reached the last page of the text. Modern books place the publisher information among the front matter of the text, but the Kelmscott Press follows the older tradition of using a ''colophon'', a statement of publisher information at the very end. Only here do you see that the editor of the book is F.S. Ellis and the publisher William Morris of the Kelmscott Press. The illustration here is the ''printer's device'' or trademark of the Kelmscott Press ("Glossary Of Book Terms"). <a href="http://36.media.tumblr.com/ab2f84cba7a12b27a6da8767a3ac9714/tumblr_o5fn5bJz8y1vn37d9o1_1280.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://36.media.tumblr.com/ab2f84cba7a12b27a6da8767a3ac9714/tumblr_o5fn5bJz8y1vn37d9o1_1280.jpg" style="width:95%;height:auto"></a> //Click to see an enlarged image.// From here you can: [[Learn more about editor F.S. Ellis.->F.S. Ellis]] [[Learn more about the Kelmscott Press.->Kelmscott Press]] [[Learn more about Press owner William Morris.->William Morris]] [[Close the book.->Closed]] [[Turn to the previous page.->Opening 55]] [[Turn to the next page.->Opening 57]] [[Skip ahead a bit.->Opening 58]] [[Flip back a bit.->Opening 47]]

Here you are looking at two blank pages. You can tell that you are close to the end of the book. <a href="http://40.media.tumblr.com/5efc6c034f690602a8611e6369cc5c38/tumblr_o5fn6fBqPW1vn37d9o1_1280.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://40.media.tumblr.com/5efc6c034f690602a8611e6369cc5c38/tumblr_o5fn6fBqPW1vn37d9o1_1280.jpg" style="width:95%;height:auto"></a> //Click to see an enlarged image.// From here you can: [[Close the book.->Closed]] [[Turn to the previous page.->Opening 56]] [[Turn to the next page.->Opening 58]] [[Skip ahead a bit.->Opening 59]] [[Flip back a bit.->Opening 52]]

Here you find two blank pages. You are very close to the end of the book. <a href="http://40.media.tumblr.com/bcbdeab5aebb18eb2fb1fa32fa73c1b3/tumblr_o5fn7gh5Vo1vn37d9o1_1280.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://40.media.tumblr.com/bcbdeab5aebb18eb2fb1fa32fa73c1b3/tumblr_o5fn7gh5Vo1vn37d9o1_1280.jpg" style="width:95%;height:auto"></a> //Click to see an enlarged image.// From here you can: [[Close the book.->Closed]] [[Turn to the previous page.->Opening 57]] [[Turn to the next page.->Opening 59]] [[Flip back a bit.->Opening 49]]

Here you are looking at the end of the book. The ''end papers'' of this book have been decorated with pink, purple, and gold ''marbling''. End papers are pasted half to the binding and half to the book itself, to give a finished appearance to the book. Marbling is a technique sometimes used for endpapers in which a sheet of paper is place on top of a liquid medium containing swirls and whorls of various pigments. The result is an "organic" effect in which no two marbled pages are exactly the same ("Alibris"). The covers of the book have a ''dentelle'' edge, a gilt decorative edge on the inside of the boards ("Preservation/Rare Books"). Some of the left page has been discolored blue by contact with the dentelle edge. <a href="http://40.media.tumblr.com/6bae8d54b9505bd8a3059feace0139c3/tumblr_o5fn8fp14v1vn37d9o1_1280.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://40.media.tumblr.com/6bae8d54b9505bd8a3059feace0139c3/tumblr_o5fn8fp14v1vn37d9o1_1280.jpg" style="width:95%;height:auto"></a> //Click to see an enlarged image.// From here you can: [[Close the book.->Closed]] [[Turn to the previous page.->Opening 58]] [[Flip back a bit.->Opening 54]]

<img src="http://41.media.tumblr.com/ef57ae64b024f0b0fa7f91e9c766352a/tumblr_o61wsgOu341vn37d9o1_1280.jpg" width="250" height="300"> //1795 portrait of Samuel Taylor Coleridge by Pieter van Dyke. The original is held by the National Portrait Gallery. Source: http://www.zeno.org - Contumax GmbH & Co.KG// Samuel Taylor Coleridge was born on October 21st, 1772 in the county of Devonshire, UK. He was an exceptionally bright child and later claimed he was reading the Bible by the age of three (Everest 17). Coleridge attended Jesus College, Cambridge (Goodson 102). His friendship with fellow poet William Wordsworth led to their collaboration, along with often uncredited assistance from Wordsworth's sister Dorothy, to the publication of //Lyrical Ballads//, a watershed moment in the history of British Romanticism (Everest 21-2). Coleridge's major poetic works include //Poems on Various Subjects// (1796), //Lyrical Ballads// with William Wordsworth (especially the 1798 and 1800 editions), //Christabel; Kubla Khan, A Vision; The Pains of Sleep// (1816), Sibylline Leaves (1817), and //The Poetical Works of S. T. Coleridge// (1828, 1829, 1834) (Goodson 95-6). Coleridge spent the last sixteen years of his life living in the home of surgeon James Gillman, who treated him for opium addiction (Everest 28). Coleridge died on July 25th, 1834 at Gillman's home (31). From here you can use the return arrow to the left to go back to the previous page.

<img src="http://41.media.tumblr.com/ec66e424eb063cb55e210d2745eb9cad/tumblr_o671ciquiy1vn37d9o1_1280.png" width="404" height="267"> //Schematic of draft 14 of the Twine 2.0 website for the project.// “My kinsman is too old to do much work in the Museum, where he was a custodian of the books for many years; but he still lives here a good deal; indeed I think,” said he, smiling, “that he looks upon himself as a part of the books, or the books a part of him, I don’t know which.” -William Morris, News from Nowhere, Chapter VIII ''Text as Object, Book as Play'' The premise of this digitization project is a friendly but firm critique of the notion that the //text// can be easily disentangled from the //book//. It has been more than half a century since Marshall McLuhan declared “the medium is the message,” but in the ebullient and well-intentioned rush to make all things known via the world wide web, we seem to sometimes forget this lesson (23). Many otherwise excellent and vitally necessary digital archives tend to treat both the printed page and the electronic screen as unproblematic empty spaces lacking in their own affordances. Under this assumption, if the words in the book are replicated on the monitor, then the task of the digital scholar is done. In short, many online editions of works seem underwritten by a conceptual framework that places book and text in diametrical opposition to one another, i.e. the task of the digitizer is to liberate the text from the physical constraints of its own material expression. It may be overreaching to suggest a parallel to the mind/body dichotomy that has caused so much consternation in Western thought for millennia, but the temptation is strong. This project does not offer the ultimate solution to the problem of remediating the book rather than the text, it perhaps serves as an initial experiment exploring the issue. The works of the Kelmscott Press in particular are a fitting place to begin, as William Morris founded the press out of a deep mistrust of the technological innovations of late nineteenth century commercial printing, in large part based upon the effect of those innovations on the reading interface (Howard 135; Miller 54-6). Morris’ concern for the impact of the materiality of the book included an insight often missing in modern digital archival: his insistence on the two-page opening, rather than the single page, as the locus where reader experiences the text: “I must begin by reminding you that we only occasionally see one page of a book at a time; the two pages making an opening are really the unit of the book, and this was thoroughly understood by the old book producers” (The Ideal Book 12) Although the modern proliferation of paperbacks and spiral or comb bound books allow for one page interactions with more books today, it is incontestable that when seated in a rare book room holding a Kelmscott Press edition that one is confronted with the reality of the two-page opening. Morris’ observation provides a major impetus behind the design decisions for this critical edition. Instead of imagining the screen as a simulation of the blank page, this edition is predicated on the notion of remediating the two-page opening. Furthermore, I have attempted here to attend more to the //activity// of reading a book. Just as Morris eschewed the steam-powered press, continuous roll paper-making, and lithographic reproduction that dominated late 19th century printing in favor of the rehabilitation of older technologies, I have opted for a simpler, almost throwback, interface (Howard 119-32). The resulting interface avoids the snare of many modern text display systems, that of unintentionally reconfiguring the codex into the scroll. Note how we now scroll through online texts nowadays, funneled into a linearity that was never a feature of the bound book. What is missing is the simple ability to flip through a book, to play with its pages. Little is to be found of the ludic element of the codex, in the sense of the “spirit of play” (//Spieltrieb//) as described by Friedrich Schiller 1794 collection //Letters Upon The Aesthetic Education of Man// or in Johan Huizinga’s 1938 treatise //Homo Ludens//. That sense of play is most directly implemented in //Encountering the Kelmscott Coleridge// by the “skip ahead” and “flip back” options available on most pages, allowing for a playful nonlinear romp through the book. Another intentionally ludic feature is the ability to be surprised by the book, much like the “easter eggs” found in video games. In more recent times, the same issues that Schiller and Huizinga address have been raised in different ways by Espen J. Aarseth in //Cybertext: Perspectives on Ergodic Literature// and Johanna Drucker in “Entity to Event: From Literal, Mechanistic Materiality to Probabilistic Materiality.” The “ergodic literature” of the former--texts that require additional navigational effort to read--is anticipated by Morris’ efforts to reinvigorate the reading experience as one worthy of slowing down and appreciating aesthetically, while Drucker’s “probabilistic materiality” proposes a framework in which our analysis focuses less on the text as object and more on reading as experience (15). Thus, //Encountering the Kelmscott Coleridge// has been designed as a “reading experience” or series of events rather than as a textual object. (For a sophisticated examination of the C.Y.O.A phenomenon, see Christian Swinehart’s “<a href=”http://samizdat.cc/cyoa/”>One Book, Many Readings</a>.”) The text-based navigation interface, inspired by ergodic/ludic texts such as the Choose Your Own Adventure series of children’s books, is built with <a href="http://twinery.org/">Twine 2.0</a>, a tool designed for authoring browser-based interactive fiction. The images are served via microblogging website <a href="http://tumblr.org">tumblr.org</a>, while certain documents, such as the printer friendly versions of the poems, are shared Google Docs. Although tumblr may seem like a strange fit for an academic project, digital scholarship on tumblr is a growing if still nascent phenomenon. For an excellent example, see L. Kelly Fitzpatrick's <a href="http://openmarginalis.tumblr.com/">Open Marginalis<a/>, especially Fitzpatrick's article <a href="http://openmarginalis.tumblr.com/post/109708397268/openmarginalis-tumblr-as-platform-for-digital">Tumblr as Platform for Digital Scholarship in Libraries, Archives, and Special Collections<a/>. This project began primarily as an investigation into the online remediation of the Kelmscott Press printing practices, but the availability of “Poems Chosen Out of the Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge” as an object of study could not have been more serendipitous. Coleridge is a poster boy for textual instability; his greatest work, //The Rime of the Ancient Mariner// exists in no less than eight different versions published in his lifetime and many more manuscript variants. Presenting key differences in various versions of the //Rime// as a counterpoint to the fetishistic aura surrounding a Kelmscott Press edition was too golden of an opportunity to pass up. The result is that the majority of the annotations to the text focus on publishing history and variants that talk back to the seeming stability of a treasured collection by a canonical poet. ''Lessons Learned'' Undertaking critical work in a digital environment for the first time inevitably involves a certain number of perhaps unavoidable rookie mistakes. Foremost among the hard-learned truths is the importance of setting standards at the beginning of the project for file formats, image sizes and resolutions, and similar parameters. Similarly, a project involving even the relatively small number of image files used here requires some sort of inventory control system established prior to the creation of a large catalog of digital materials. Furthermore, as this project reached its present state of completion, it became increasingly clear that the resulting interface feels decidedly pre-Web 2.0. I may have achieved at least partial success in my goal of remediating the experience of encountering the Kelmscott Coleridge, but the reader/user lacks any venue to write back to the text or to interact with other users. While this may not be a flaw, it is certainly an oversight in my conceptualization of the project that merits further thought. But the most fruitful lesson gained from this experience has been the insight into the curation practice of editor F. S. Ellis. For months I struggled to understand the thought process behind the choices Ellis made in selecting poems for the Kelmscott Coleridge. Of course “Kubla Khan,” //The Rime of the Ancient Mariner//, and //Christabel// must be included, as Coleridge’s fame rests upon them. I was pleasantly surprised to find “The Knight’s Tomb,” a favorite short if somewhat insubstantial piece that does not seem to be often collected. But where was “The Nightingale?” Or “Dejection: An Ode?” Where was “Frost at Midnight” or “This Lime Tree Bower My Prison?” Initially, the choices made by Ellis for //Poems Chosen Out of the Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge// seemed haphazard or even random. Only by the slow process of reading, re-reading, researching, and annotating did Ellis’ thinking become clear to me. Of the thirteen poems collected in the Kelmscott Coleridge, nine of them are explicitly ballad in form or derived from the ballad. The debt owed to the ballad form by //Rime// is sometimes hard to see with the addition of the marginal glosses, and I didn’t realize that “The Knight’s Tomb” was intended as the opening of a ballad until I saw J. C. C. Mays point that out in his annotations to the variorum edition of the complete poems of Coleridge. The balance of the poems are either presented as incomplete fragments, or work by explicitly addressing Coleridge’s lifelong struggle to complete even his best work (for the latter, see “Names,” the plot of which hinges on Coleridge's inability to name a character in another, unseen poem, or “Work without Hope,” a poem in which Coleridge bemoans his inability to write poetry). At the intersection of these two themes sit balladic works like “A Fragment of a Sexton’s Tale,” and “The Ballad of the Dark Ladié,” which is subtitled “A Fragment.” This, then, is the Coleridge that F. S. Ellis brings to the fore, Coleridge the fragmentary balladeer. According to this reading, Ellis is not merely overseeing the creation of a new collection of Coleridge poems that happens to be published by the Kelmscott Press. Rather, Ellis is inviting Coleridge to participate in the Kelmscott Press project of reinventing a fragmented, nearly inaccessible aesthetic past. His choice of these particular verses places Coleridge the poet among Morris the designer, Ellis the editor, William Harcourt Hooper the engraver, Joseph Batchelor the paper maker and many others as co-creators of an amazing aesthetic object. Jeff Rients Illinois State University From here you can... [[Return to the beginning->Welcome!]] [[View the acknowledgements page.->Acknowledgements]] <a href="https://docs.google.com/document/d/186i-OIkuy_fBABc_-howQio5CPFl6ZVbChrBWACEQPQ/edit?usp=sharing">View the bibliographhy for the project.</a> <a href="https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B5t6Jq5m137TN1k0czVCOWUzRms/view?usp=sharing">View a raw TEI encoding of the Kelmscott Coleridge</a>

<img src="http://41.media.tumblr.com/41b04758f371250b451ec053250b6b5c/tumblr_o69ah48AJN1vn37d9o1_250.jpg" width="190" height="107"> The small print stamped at the bottom of the inside front cover says "Toof & Co." S.C. Toof & Co. was founded in Memphis, Tennessee in 1864 as a firm specializing in steam printing, lithography, and the manufacture of blank books ("Our Story"). By 1884 they were also prestige book binders under the leadership of Otto Zahn, a German immigrant considered a world leader in the craft of handbinding books ("Otto Zahn Master Bookbinder"). From here you can... Use the back button on the upper left of the screen to return to the previous page. <a href="http://bookbinding.com/our-publications/on-art-binding/toof-exhbition.html">Visit bookbinding.com's Toof exhibit.</a>

<img src="http://36.media.tumblr.com/e75be7c76fb7c030fa1159f6ca0b6f25/tumblr_o5fle1I28H1vn37d9o1_1280.jpg" width="1179" height="890" alt="Bookplate."> //No photograph has been found for Wanda Frischen-Carus.// Thanks to her bookplate (pictured above), Wanda Frischen-Carus is the only previous owner of this book that has been identified thus far. According to genealogical records, she was born Wanda May Frischen on May 1st, 1888 in New York state to German immigrant parents Friedrich Wilhem Frischen and Sophie Wanda Carus. She had a twin sister named Wanda. Wanda move to Bremen, Germany to marry Curt Achim Karl von Karstedt, an officer in the German army, on March 26, 1913. They had two sons, Ernst Carus von Karstedt and Herbert Curt Matthias von Karstedt. Shortly after the birth of second son Herbert, the couple divorced. Her second marriage was to Ernst Ebeling, a military friend of her first husband. Ernst suffered from tuberculosis and the couple spent time in Switzerland seeking treatment, particularly in the Arosa and Davros areas. While living in Germany Wanda was an active book collector and patron of the literary arts in both German and English. Books from her library surface circulate among rare book dealers and auction houses to this day. She was a member of several organizations promoting literature in Germany, including //Frauenbund zur Ehrung deutscher Dichter// ("Women's Federation to Honor the German Poet") and //Maximilian-Gesellschaft// ("Maximillian Company"). She was a cofounder of the Lyzeum Club of Berlin. Wanda's name appears in Fritz Homeyer's book //Deutsche Juden als Bibliophilen und Antiquare// ("German Jews as Bibliophiles and Booksellers") and record got her exists in the Swiss Federal Archives filed under "liquidation of German assets (1934-1978)." Wanda survived World War II and the Holocaust, as records put her death in Hamburg in 1946. Whether her library was "liquedated" against her will remains unknown at this time. From here you can [[return to the book->Opening 2]]

<img src="http://41.media.tumblr.com/afe8d16237a6480f7c82543c2392120e/tumblr_o6247c5q9R1vn37d9o1_400.jpg" width="330" height="470"> //Heinrich Vogeler photographed in 1897. Public domain image.// Heinrich Vogeler provided the illustration for the custom bookplate used by Wanda Frichen-Garus. Vogeler was born in the city of Bremen in 1872 and died in what is now Kazakhstan in 1942 (Schütze). He was a founder of the Vorpswede Artists colony, where he learned the art of engraving and became known for his "dream-like, stylized fairy-tale figures" (Pettit 107; Hannesen). Vogeler fought in the German Army in World War I, but was institutionalized in a mental asylum for socialist and pacifist tendencies (Schütze). He later converted his Vorpswede home into a worker's commune center of socialist education (Petit 108). He spent much of the last two decades of his life working on socialist art and propaganda programs in the USSR (Schütze). From here you can... [[Return to the book.->Opening 2]] [[Learn more about Vogeler's client Wanda Frischen-Garus->Wanda Frischen-Carus]]

You're looking at the call slip for this book. Every text in Milner Library's Special Collections comes with a call slip that helps keep the collection organized. This call slip indicates that you are holding a rare book with a Library of Congress call number of PR4478.A35 E4. The letters AFP indicate that this call slip were as printed on acid free paper. This book qualified for storage in Special Collections because of its special binding, its typography, its imprint (the Kelmscott Press) and for its bookplate. You promise yourself to carefully replace the call slip after you are done with it, so it does not get separated from the book. <img src="http://56.media.tumblr.com/f2288d90e97dd5dc9539a7b64e4bcef2/tumblr_o3do1dBOfq1vn37d9o4_1280.jpg" width="185" height="960" alt="Call Slip front"> Fron here you can: [[Go to the page you in which you found the callslip->Opening 22a]] [[Flip the call slip over and look at the back.->Call slip reverse]] [[Return the call slip and look for the bookplate mentioned on it.->Opening 2]] [[Learn more about the book's imprint, the Kelmscott Press->Kelmscott Press]] Or use the undo icon (the little arrow arcing backwards at the top left of this page) to return the previous page.

Here you are looking at the opening to //The Rime of the Ancient Mariner//. You have removed the slip of paper obscuring one of the pages, and underneath you find the silk ribbon bookmark sewn into the custom binding of the book. With the slip of paper out of the way, it is easier to see the elaborate ornamental grapevine border on this page, similar but not identical to the borders on the first page of two poems found later in this collection, "The Ballad of the Dark Ladié" and "Alice Du Clos." <a href="http://40.media.tumblr.com/9452c8211cc414fce3087523ee06368f/tumblr_o5fm5cDwYB1vn37d9o1_1280.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://40.media.tumblr.com/9452c8211cc414fce3087523ee06368f/tumblr_o5fm5cDwYB1vn37d9o1_1280.jpg" style="width:95%;height:auto"></a> //Click to see an enlarged image.// Like all the other poems in this collection, the main text of Part I of //The Rime of the Ancient Mariner// begins with a large woodblock initial. However, before the poem proper, we are confronted with two lines of red text. This passage and the other sentence in red ink are part of the system of ''marginal glosses'' introduced by Coleridge in the 1817 edition of //Rime// (Halmi, Magnuson, and Madiano 56). The effect intended by COleridge is to simulate the notes in the margins found in medieval manuscripts, i.e. to give the impression of commentary by a later-but-still-long-gone reader (Stillinger 71-2). That effect is complicated here by the Kelmscott Press layout practices, in which the first page of a chapter or work simulates the appearance of a text block from the dawn of the age of the printing press (Morris 34-5). The two different attempts to employ earlier writing practices clash, spoiling Coleridge's gothic design aesthetic. The result is two marginal notes moved into the main text space, offering commentary on passages the reader has yet to encounter. Later pages of the //Rime// avoid this problem, better matching versions published on and after 1817. From here you can: <a href="https://docs.google.com/document/d/1S0iI2ORYd72fT8M42A_7zZPF_lm7PDyeA7EifPnQXKE/edit?usp=sharing" target="_blank">Access a printer friendly version of this poem.</a> [[Learn more about Samuel Taylor Coleridge->Coleridge]] [[Learn more about the Kelmscott Press->Kelmscott Press]] [[Move the ribbon aside and examine the text underneath->Opening 22b]] [[Return the slip of paper and close the book.->Closed]] [[Return the slip of paper and turn to the previous page.->Opening 21]] [[Return the slip of paper and turn to the next page.->Opening 23]] [[Return the slip of paper and skip ahead a bit.->Opening 31]] [[Return the slip of paper and flip back a bit.->Opening 16]]

<img src="http://40.media.tumblr.com/edee4d1e5fbb62124eddc874ed58740f/tumblr_o5usqc96U21vn37d9o1_1280.jpg" width="250" height="163"> On November 15th, 1888, William Morris attended a lecture delivered by his friend, the printer Emery Walker. Titled “Letter-Press Printing and Illustration,” Walker's lecture argued that the earliest forms of European moveable type, based on contemporary handwriting, were aesthetically superior to modern typography (Peterson 324-5). The lecture and the accompanying lantern slides displaying examples of earlier typefaces provided the major impetus to the foundation of the Kelmscott Press (Lee 178-9). Reflecting back near the end of his life on five years of Press activities, Morris would claim that he “began printing books with the hope of producing some which would have a definite claim to beauty, while at the same time they should be easy to read and should not dazzle the eye, or trouble the intellect of the reader by the eccentricity of the form in the letters” (387). Kelmscott Press’s first publication was the first book version of //The Story of the Glittering Plain// (Lee 181), a prose romance that has been called the first modern fantasy novel (de Camp 40). For this new edition and other Kelmscott projects, Morris designed what he called Golden type, a new typeface based upon photographic enlargements of a typeface used by 15th century printer Nicolas Jenson (Faulkner 157; Lee 180). Morris would go on to design over 680 decorative borders, initials, frames, and other ornaments for use by the Press (Isherwood 14). From its beginnings, therefore, one of the primary features of the Kelmscott Press was its method of reconfiguring the ancient and the modern. Old typefaces from bygone centuries aren’t simply adopted, but altered and reinvigorated using then-new techniques of photography to achieve technical precision. And although medieval manuscripts and the earliest printed books served as Morris' model for production, he did not hesitate to employ modern technological improvements that could be integrated into that model, such as a cast iron press or ink rollers (Lee 179). Morris' choice of texts to print ranged from his own groundbreaking work in the fantasy genre (itself a reinvigoration of earlier forms) to reprinting classics such as Chaucer and Shakespeare to the Romantic poets Keats and Shelley to reprinting works first put to press by William Caxton (183-5). In the methods of production, the construction of typefaces, and the choice of texts printed, Morris continuously explored the relationship between the past and the present. The Kelmscott Press also addressed Morris' utopianist, socialist political agenda. The goal of the press was not just the creation of beautiful books, but the creation of beautiful books under just labor conditions (Miller 56). Morris' employees were members of a trade union, the London Society of Compositors, and received a living wage (Isherwood 6). From here you can... [[Learn a little bit more about Press founder William Morris.->William Morris]] Use the back arrow in the upper left of the screen to return to the previous page.

You're looking at the call slip for this book. Every text in Milner Library's Special Collections comes with a call slip that helps keep the collection organized. This side of the call slip contains nothing but the word RARE and the Library of Congress call number PR4478.A35 E4. <img src="http://41.media.tumblr.com/928e59e8ff0cbb41e99cff80a06525ed/tumblr_o3do1dBOfq1vn37d9o3_1280.jpg" width="194" height="960" alt="Call Slip back"> Fron here you can: [[Go to the page you in which you found the callslip->Opening 22a]] [[Flip the call slip over and look at the front.->Call slip]]

One of the most distinctive features of the Kelmscott Press design ethos is the extensive use of wood-engraved initial letters at the beginning of texts, chapters and, for some books, individual paragraphs (Peterson xxx). Although inspired by the rubricated initials of medieval manuscripts, the designs are uniquely those of press founder William Morris (xxxiii). Over the six years he headed the operations of the Press, Morris designed 384 initials of various size. Morris created at least 34 variations of the letter //T// alone (Johnson xi). Andrew Isherwood quotes Morris on the lavish ornamentation of the Kelmscott Press: "[I]t was only natural that I, as a decorator by profession, should attempt to ornament my books suitably... I have always tried to keep in mind the necessity for making my decoration a part of the page of type." (14) From here you can... Use the back arrow on the upper left of your screen to return to the previous page. [[Learn more about the Kelmscott Press->Kelmscott Press]] [[Learn more about William Morris->William Morris]]

Here you are looking at two pages from the second part of //Christabel//. <a href="http://41.media.tumblr.com/65cf377568daebe081bb563fe846ff95/tumblr_o5usrar8Y61vn37d9o1_1280.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://41.media.tumblr.com/65cf377568daebe081bb563fe846ff95/tumblr_o5usrar8Y61vn37d9o1_1280.jpg" style="width:95%;height:auto"></a> //Click to see an enlarged image.// From here you can: <a hre="https://docs.google.com/document/d/1BMPMkBmOWBkuJzoJf6UDP-M1ObKi02ocwtl0mdUOMhM/edit?usp=sharing" target="_blank">Access a printer friendly version of this poem.</a> [[Close the book.->Closed]] [[Turn to the previous page.->Opening 18]] [[Turn to the next page.->Opening 19]] [[Skip ahead a bit.->Opening 26]] [[Flip back a bit.->Opening 15]]

You have found two pages of //The Rime of the Ancient Mariner//. <a href="http://40.media.tumblr.com/ae50263256f4bed46cb5bd4545fdb537/tumblr_o5uuoxeUsP1vn37d9o1_1280.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://40.media.tumblr.com/ae50263256f4bed46cb5bd4545fdb537/tumblr_o5uuoxeUsP1vn37d9o1_1280.jpg" style="width:95%;height:auto"></a> //Click to see an enlarged image.// The original seed of the //Rime// was the Coleridge's friend John Cruikshank, who reported deaming of a "skeleton ship" (Halmi, Magnuson, and Modiano 55). The 1798 //Lyrical Ballads// version has a different version of the stanza beginning "Her lips were red, her looks were free" and the two preceding lines that focuses on the figure of Death rather than Life-in-Death: And are those two all, all the crew, That woman and her fleshless Pheere? //His// bones were black with many a crack, All black and bare, I ween; Jet-black and bare, save where with rust Of mouldy damps and charnel crust They're patched with purple and green. (Stillinger 166; //Poetical Works// 523-4) From here you can: <a href="https://docs.google.com/document/d/1S0iI2ORYd72fT8M42A_7zZPF_lm7PDyeA7EifPnQXKE/edit?usp=sharing" target="_blank">Access a printer friendly version of this poem.</a> [[Close the book.->Closed]] [[Turn to the previous page.->Opening 25]] [[Turn to the next page.->Opening 26]] [[Skip ahead a bit.->Opening 31]] [[Flip back a bit.->Opening 19]]

<img src="http://40.media.tumblr.com/51b2d78c398df7ad4666211bfe83aa80/tumblr_o61wdnr9zD1vn37d9o1_500.jpg" width="238" height="300"> //William Morris, age 53, by English photographer Frederick Hollyer (1899). Public domain image.// In 1979 biographer Frederick Kirchoff wrote of William Morris: "Morris’s uniqueness among the Victorians may account for the as yet incomplete rediscovery of his work in the twentieth century. He does not fit our customary generalizations about his period. Nor can he be reduced to a simple label. Pre-Raphaelite, craftsman, Marxist--he was all these things, but the terms, either singly or taken as a group, fail to capture the essence of the man. George Bernard Shaw called him ‘a prophet and a saint’... and like other prophets and saints he challenges our complacencies." (166) The figure of William Morris looms large over the the imaginative life of 19th century England, as a writer, visual artist, utopianist, and political agitator. Born on 24 March 1834 in Waltathamstow, a quaint village that destined to be absorbed into the urban sprawl of London, he was said to ahve been a bright child. By age seven young William read through the novels of Sir Walter Scott (Johnson vii; Wilmer xi). Later Morris attended Oxford intending to become a member of the clergy, but afterward devoted himself to artistic and social causes (Helsinger 209, Johnson viii). Morris wrote poetry and prose, drew and painted, designed and built furniture, reinvigorated the field of textiles as an artform, and gave orations in favor of political revolution. Morris' approach to the materiality of the imagination directly influenced the Arts & Craft (Howard 137). Morris was a founder of both the Guild Socialist movement and the Socialist League in England (Bornstein 242). One of his last public appearances at the end of his life was to attend the first meeting of the Society for Checking the Abuses of Public Advertising. The primary activity of the last six years of his life was the operation of the Kelmscott Press, which produced some of the most beautiful books ever printed. Upon his death in 1896 one of his doctors declared that the cause of death was "being William Morris, and having done more work than most ten men" (Wilmer ix). From here you can... Use the return arrow (top left) to go back to the previous page. [[Learn more about Morris's Kelmscott Press.->Kelmscott Press]]

<img src="http://41.media.tumblr.com/12823f4b3ba28b759df395bfda187fb3/tumblr_o61w3a1DD91vn37d9o1_400.jpg" width="366" height="400"> //F. S. Ellis, as depicted in W. Roberts’// The Book-Hunter in London//. Public domain image.// Frederick Startridge Ellis is credited as the editor of the Kelmscott Press edition of selected poems of Samuel Taylor Coleridge. Born in London on June 7th, 1830, F.S. Ellis' father was a local hotelier. Ellis developed an early love of books that led him to seek an education abroad and return to apprentice in the booksellers' trade (Dreyfus 131). He eventually rose to prominence as one of the most reknown bibliographers and rare book dealers in England (Halkett et al. 8; Roberts 245). His influence in the world of the rare book trade eventually reached America, where a letter he wrote attesting to the authenticty of a rare book became the centerpiece of a New York state appelate court case (“Ives v. Ellis et al.” 138-9). Later in his career Ellis became a publisher, with William Morris' //The Earthly Paradise// his first publication (Dreyfus 131). Complications arising from tuberculosis caused Ellis to retire in his mid fifties. He then set about writing and editing numerous texts, including involvement with 22 of the 53 works published by the Kelmscott Press (Dreyfus 132; //A Catalogue// 19). From here you can... [[Learn more about the Kelmscott Press.->Kelmscott Press]] [[Return to the book.->Opening 56]]

Tucking the silk bookmark away, you can now clearly see the beginning of //The Rime of the Ancient Mariner//. <a href="http://40.media.tumblr.com/c12ce46be4d0041d4d60263f19355fc7/tumblr_o5fm5cDwYB1vn37d9o3_1280.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://40.media.tumblr.com/c12ce46be4d0041d4d60263f19355fc7/tumblr_o5fm5cDwYB1vn37d9o3_1280.jpg" style="width:95%;height:auto"></a> //Click to see an enlarged image.// From here you can... <a href="https://docs.google.com/document/d/1S0iI2ORYd72fT8M42A_7zZPF_lm7PDyeA7EifPnQXKE/edit?usp=sharing" target="_blank">Access a printer friendly version of this poem.</a> [[Return the slip of paper and close the book.->Closed]] [[Return the slip of paper and turn to the previous page.->Opening 21]] [[Return the slip of paper and turn to the next page.->Opening 23]] [[Return the slip of paper and skip ahead a bit.->Opening 29]] [[Return the slip of paper and flip back a bit.->Opening 17]]

Removing the items you find in the book, you set them aside for the moment. You are now looking at two pages of "The Rime of Ancient Mariner." <a href="http://41.media.tumblr.com/19794f53390b27ed88db7c00f46f0e4c/tumblr_o5fmer8DWr1vn37d9o2_1280.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://41.media.tumblr.com/19794f53390b27ed88db7c00f46f0e4c/tumblr_o5fmer8DWr1vn37d9o2_1280.jpg" style="width:95%;height:auto"></a> //Click to see an enlarged image.// From here you can: <a href="https://docs.google.com/document/d/1S0iI2ORYd72fT8M42A_7zZPF_lm7PDyeA7EifPnQXKE/edit?usp=sharing" target="_blank">Access a printer friendly version of this poem.</a> [[Examine the bits of loose paper and cardstock.->Miscellaneous ephemera]] [[Replace the extra bits and close the book.->Closed]] [[Replace the extra bits and turn to the previous page.->Opening 29]] [[Replace the extra bits and turn to the next page.->Opening 31]] [[Replace the extra bits and skip ahead a bit.->Opening 42]] [[Replace the extra bits and flip back a bit.->Opening 18]]

You have placed the book aside and are now examining all the items you found stashed inside it. They appear to all relate to the sale or display of this book. Perhaps the librarians in the Special Collections unit place them inside. <a href="http://40.media.tumblr.com/c450e0faf79d0fd1552fd30a808f21a8/tumblr_o5fn9iCPxA1vn37d9o1_1280.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://40.media.tumblr.com/c450e0faf79d0fd1552fd30a808f21a8/tumblr_o5fn9iCPxA1vn37d9o1_1280.jpg" style="width:95%;height:auto"></a> //Click to see an enlarged image.// From here you can... [[Flip all these items over and look at the back of them.->Flipped over]] [[Look at the page where you found all this stuff.->Opening 30a]] [[Replace this stuff and close the book.->Closed]] [[Replace this stuff and turn to the previous page.->Opening 29]] [[Replace this stuff and turn to the next page.->Opening 31]] [[Replace this stuff and skip ahead a bit.->Opening 42]] [[Replace this stuff and flip back a bit.->Opening 18]]

You have placed the book aside and are now examining all the items you found stashed inside it. You've flipped them all over to look at the backs. <a href="http://40.media.tumblr.com/4175d1e76684238f5b93ff49be931492/tumblr_o5fn9iCPxA1vn37d9o2_1280.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://40.media.tumblr.com/4175d1e76684238f5b93ff49be931492/tumblr_o5fn9iCPxA1vn37d9o2_1280.jpg" style="width:95%;height:auto"></a> //Click to see an enlarged image.// From here you can... [[Flip all these items back over to the front.->Miscellaneous ephemera]] [[Look at the page where you found all this stuff.->Opening 30a]] [[Replace this stuff and close the book.->Closed]] [[Replace this stuff and turn to the previous page.->Opening 29]] [[Replace this stuff and turn to the next page.->Opening 31]] [[Replace this stuff and skip ahead a bit.->Opening 40]] [[Replace this stuff and flip back a bit.->Opening 25]]

I would like to thank... Katherine Ellison and my colleagues in her graduate seminar in Best Practices in Digitizing Historical Documents, for an intense and educational semester. The staff of Illinois State University’s Milner Library, especially Maureen Brunsdale and Mark Schmitt of the Special Collections & Rare Books unit, for their patience and assistance. Thaddeus Stoklasa for introducing me to the joys of Twine. Chad Scheiman of ISU College of Arts & Sciences IT, for technical support. Brian Rejack for initiation into the world of the Kelmscott Press. David Giovagnoli for a semester of fun and fellowship. My wife Amy and daughter Elizabeth for continuing to put up with my nonsense. -Jeff Rients, 27 Apr 2016