Based on a comparison of early editions, manuscripts, and copies annotated by the poet himself, this edition provides a reliable text of Coleridge's last prose work, first published in 1830. Originally intended to influence public opinion on the Catholic Emancipation Bill of 1829, the work became a brief but brilliant synthesis of Coleridge's political and theological thought, whose influence extended well beyond the nineteenth century. John Colmer's introduction and notes place the work in its literary and historical context and they illuminate Coleridge's process of composition and the...

Based on a comparison of early editions, manuscripts, and copies annotated by the poet himself, this edition provides a reliable text of Coleridge's last prose work, first published in 1830. Originally intended to influence public opinion on the Catholic Emancipation Bill of 1829, the work became a brief but brilliant synthesis of Coleridge's political and theological thought, whose influence extended well beyond the nineteenth century. John Colmer's introduction and notes place the work in its literary and historical context and they illuminate Coleridge's process of composition and the...