Selected Letters (Oxford Paperbacks)

Coleridge was an outstanding letter-writer, but until now readers were forced to choose between the limited selection given in anthologies, and the six volumes of the standard edition. This volume contains the best of Coleridge's published letters, concentrating on those of literary and biographical interest, and including explanatory passages wherever necessary to create a sense of continuous narration. Jackson has included letters from every phase of Coleridge's career, revealing his complex personality in evolution. These vivid and intimate letters also record the progress of his association with Southey and Wordsworth, and his struggle against addiction to opium. Useful supplementary material includes a chronology of Coleridge's life, brief biographies of the main correspondents as well as the people they mention in their letters, and translations of foreign phrases.