Record Number: 34000

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Reading Experience:

Evidence:

‘...it is very cruel in people whom I never injured to publish my father’s natural complaints of my delinquencies to the million whom they concern not - still worse to promulgate what can do no credit either to the living or to the dead, and must convey very false impressions to the public...and most infamous to assume the character of author of the publication of what the Traitor has no moral right in, garnish’d with nonsense which is certainly peculiarly and absolutely his own. ... I owe Master [Thomas] Allsop a licking. To be sure, he has the excuse of idiocy, which [Thomas] De Q[uincey]. could not plead. ...’

Century:

1800-1849

Date:

Between 1 Sep 1834 and 6 Nov 1836

Country:

England

Time

n/a

Place:

city: Grasmere
county: Cumbria

Type of Experience
(Reader):
 

silent aloud unknown
solitary in company unknown
single serial unknown

Type of Experience
(Listener):
 

solitary in company unknown
single serial unknown

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Reader / Listener / Reading Group:

Reader:

Hartley Coleridge

Age:

Adult (18-100+)

Gender:

Male

Date of Birth:

19 Sep 1796

Socio-Economic Group:

Professional / academic / merchant / farmer

Occupation:

Poet, essayist, teacher, biographer

Religion:

Church of England

Country of Origin:

England

Country of Experience:

England

Listeners present if any:
e.g family, servants, friends

n/a

Additional Comments:

n/a

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Text Being Read:

Author:

Thomas Allsop

Title:

Letters, Conversations and Recollections of Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Genre:

Essays / Criticism, Autobiog / Diary, Conduct books, Letters

Form of Text:

Print: Book, Serial / periodical

Publication Details

n/a

Provenance

unknown

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Source Information:

Record ID:

34000

Source:

Print

Author:

Hartley Coleridge

Editor:

Grace Evelyn and Earl Leslie Griggs

Title:

Letters of Hartley Coleridge

Place of Publication:

London

Date of Publication:

1936

Vol:

n/a

Page:

203

Additional Comments:

Letter addressed to Mrs Samuel Taylor Coleridge (Hartley’s mother), at Hampstead, London, from Grasmere, dated November 6, 1836. Editors’ footnote: ‘[Thomas] Allsop’s Letters, Conversations and Recollections of S. T. Coleridge deserves all that Hartley says of it. The book, which is addressed to Allsop’s children and was apparently intended for their moral education, consists mainly of the stupid stringing together of [S.T.] Coleridge’s letters and conversations, interspersed with Allsop’s own advice and observations.’ Allsop’s book contained personal references to Hartley and Derwent [Coleridge] who, as Griggs points out, are ‘very thinly disguised by Allsop under the initials “J” and “E”’. Hartley is also referring to Thomas De Quincey’s article on S. T. Coleridge, which appeared in Tait’s Magazine in September 1834. As Griggs points out, ‘De Quincey gives a good many details of [S.T.] Coleridge’s family life...and he goes to great lengths in an attempt to prove [S.T.] Coleridge’s plagiarisms from the German.’ (p. 181)

Citation:

Hartley Coleridge, Grace Evelyn and Earl Leslie Griggs (ed.), Letters of Hartley Coleridge, (London, 1936), n/a, p. 203, http://www.open.ac.uk/Arts/reading/UK/record_details.php?id=34000, accessed: 24 April 2024

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Additional Comments:

Mrs Samuel Taylor Coleridge is Sarah Coleridge, née Fricker.