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COLERIDGE, Samuel Taylor.
Christabel: Kubla Khan, a vision; The pains of sleep.
London, John Murray, 1816.
Tall octavo; text clean and bright, edges trimmed slightly; fine copy in full tan calf, gilt, by Sangorski and Sutcliffe.
A beautiful copy of this important book: first edition, with the half-title but without the advertisement leaves.
'Coleridge alone among English writers is in the front rank at once as poet, as critic and as philosopher' (DNB). His reputation rests partly on his efforts to represent the supernatural in verse; the centrepiece of this slim volume is certainly Kubla Khan, which famously is reputed to have come to the poet in an opium dream. Drenched in erotic imagery, it is a hymn to creativity and the Orient. This is one of his most important poems and it neatly illustrates the guiding principles of his poetry: that it be 'simple, sensuous, passionate'. Christabel and The Pains of Sleep round out the volume.
Ashley I, p.204; Grolier, 100; Hayward, 207; Sterling , 188.
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