The Samuel Taylor Coleridge manuscript material in the Pforzheimer Collection consists of 20 pieces of writings and 26 pieces of correspondence. The writings include: a holograph corrected proof of his "Sonnet 8: To the Author of the 'Robbers'" ; fifteen holograph poems (only six of which were published during Coleridge's lifetime) ; two poems by William Lisle Bowles and one poem by Robert Southey, each copied out in Coleridge's hand ; a presentation inscription ; and a legal document with his signature. The bulk of the correspondence is dated between 1792 and 1794 and discusses both his professional and personal lives, most of which is published in the Collected Letters edited by E. L. Griggs. Correspondents include: Mary Evans, his first love, Sara Fricker Coleridge, his wife ; Mary Robinson, author and actress ; Charles Augustus Tulk, Swedenborgian writer and politician ; and over a dozen others.
Samuel Taylor Coleridge, English poet, critic, and philosopher.
This guide considers the Samuel Taylor Coleridge manuscript material in two series: Series I, Writings, listed chronologically by date of creation, and Series II, Correspondence, listed alphabetically and chronologically, by recipient.
This finding aid is for manuscript materials held by the Pforzheimer Collection that were created by Samuel Taylor Coleridge. These materials have been acquired throughout the history of the Collection, and are kept on-site at the New York Public Library, filed in acid-free paper envelopes.
The first acquisitions of Coleridge manuscript material were from the sales of the effects of major collectors of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The holograph poem "Love's Apparition and Evanishment," one of the last Coleridge wrote before his death in 1834, was the initial Coleridge item acquired by Carl H. Pforhzeimer in 1918. In 1919, Pforzheimer acquired the papers of Mary Evans, Coleridge's first love interest, at the Sotheby's sale of the English collector Alfred Morrison's autograph letters and historical documents. These papers, relating to the women of the Evans family and containing some of Coleridge's earliest poetry, remain the most significant grouping of Coleridge related materials in the Collection. See Griggs 76 for more information about the Coleridge letters destroyed by Mary Evans after her marraige.
1920 saw more poems and letters purchased from the sale of the estate of New York book dealer George D. Smith. Though, for nearly the next half-century, very few Coleridge materials were added to the Collection. 1969 saw the purchase of eight more items previously associated with Mary Morgan, the sister of Coleridge's friend John Morgan, via Sotheby's. These papers included four previously unpublished poems. Most of the Coleridge items acquired since then were purchased individually, from various dealers.
Because the Pforzheimer Collection collects actively, its holdings in Samuel Taylor Coleridge manuscript material may grow in the future as items become available for purchase.
Finding aid first created by Charles Carter, 2013. Finding aid revised and expanded by Timothy Gress, 2022.
In addition to manuscript material created by Samuel Taylor Coleridge, the Pforzheimer Collection also holds about thirty editions of his works published during his lifetime (amounting to about eighty percent of Coleridge's published output). Highlights include his son Derwent's copy of the first edition, second issue of Lyrical Ballads (1798) and a first edition copy of The Friend (1809-10) with a letter from William Wordsworth to Joseph Snow tipped in.
Also held are a few manuscript letters addressed to Coleridge, several letters by his relatives, two Coleridge poems in the hand of Mary Shelley (MWS 0237), and a copy of William Wordsworth's The Waggoner (1819) inscribed from the author to Coleridge's daughter Sara. A small folder of poems, including a draft of Robert Southey's "Stanzas written after a long absense" in Mary Evans's hand, and miscellaneous scribblings were purchased along with the Mary Evans papers at the Alfred Morrison sale in 1919, and were once thought to be in the hand of Coleridge (MISC 0087-88). About them, a note from Coleridge scholar Kathleen Coburn says:
The hands here are unknown to me. F[ryer] T[odd] largely? 1825. They look like the hands of the generation just a decade or two younger than Coleridge – some resemble J. H. Green's hand, but I think are not his. – K. C. See Griggs 76 : volume I, page 144 for related information.
Additional Samuel Taylor Coleridge manuscript and printed material at the New York Public Library can be found in The Henry W. and Albert A. Berg Collection of English and American Literature, and in the Manuscripts and Archives Division.