Lot 41
  • 41

Coleridge, Samuel Taylor

Estimate
7,000 - 9,000 USD
bidding is closed

Description

  • Coleridge, Samuel Taylor
  • The Friend; A Literary, Moral, and Political Weekly Paper, Excluding Personal and Party Politics, and the Events of the Day. Numbers 1-27, and one unnumbered issue [28 total all issued]. Penrith: printed and published by J. Brown, 1 June 1809-15 March 1810.
  • Paper, ink, leather
28 numbers bound in one volume, 8vo (257 x 156 mm). Uncut; lower corner repaired.  Full blue morocco, gilt.

first edition of this rare political weekly, complete with all issues.



Produced while staying with the Wordsworth family, The Friend was to be printed at Penrith, calling for a journey on foot over the fells from Grasmere every time a fresh number was ready. Despite the apprehension of some of his friends that it would never appear, and Wordsworth's feeling that this might be as well since Coleridge was unfitted by temperament for any course of action demanding application, a week with Wordsworth's friend Thomas Wilkinson during which he was kept without stimulants helped him to produce the first number.

Provenance

W.H. White (bookplate).

Literature

Tinker 689 (noting Wordsworth references); Wise, Coleridge 20.