Description

During his adult life until his death in 1834, Coleridge made entries in more than sixty notebooks. Neither commonplace books nor diaries, but something of both, they contain notes on literary, theological, philosophical, scientific, social and psychological matters, plans for and fragments of works and many other items of great interest. Shortly after World War II, Kathleen Coburn, formerly of Victoria College in Toronto, rediscovered this great collection of unpublished manuscripts. With the support of the Coleridge estate, she embarked on a career of editing and publishing these volumes and was awarded with many honours for her work, including: a Leverhulme Award (1948), a Guggenheim Fellowship (1953), a Fellowship in the Royal Society of Canada (1958), the Order of Canada (1974) and an honorary doctorate from her own university. Originally projected as a five volume set (each volume consisting of a book of text and a book of notes) only four of the volumes have been published to date. This collection will not only make available those four volumes once again but will also, for the first time, publish the final long awaited fifth and final volume bringing the collection to its natural conclusion.