Beschreibung:

COLERIDGE, Samuel Taylor (1772-1834). Sibylline Leaves: A Collection of Poems . London: Rest Fenner 1817. 8° (224 x 135mm). (Some spotting.) Uncut in late 19th-century brown half morocco, preserving original blue limp wrappers, gilt-lettered spine (upper cover slightly faded, spine bands a little rubbed). Provenance : Clement Carlyon (ownership inscription on inside front cover dated 1823; his 5-line note to the poem 'Lines written in the Album at Elbingerode' (p. 170), signed with initials) -- corrections in a neater hand following the first page of errata -- other notes in various hands, including a manuscript list of contents -- George Livingston Nichols (bookplate) -- newspaper clipping tipped onto p. 209, further clippings at front and rear. CARLYON'S COPY OF THE FIRST EDITION. Clement Carlyon was among a small group of English students who befriended Coleridge during the three months he spent at Götingen University (February-May 1799), studying Lessing. A future doctor, Carlyon was then twenty-two, and a Fellow of Pembroke College. In early May Coleridge announced that, before returning home, 'he intended a walking tour in the Hartz mountains, to pay his respects to the Brocken spectre, and observe the springtime celebrations in the countryside.' Not only his travelling companion, John Chester, but a whole set of friends, Carlyon, Charles and Frederick Parry, brothers of the explorer Sir William Parry another doctor George Greenough, and the son of Professor Blumenbach elected to join him. Coleridge nicknamed the tour the 'Carlyon-Parry-Greenation.' The group were 'away for a week, climbing the Brocken, and then returning on an exhausting and circuitous course through the little country villages ... At many of the inns, a stammbuch or visitor's album was kept, and Coleridge began to compose a memorial poem of their tour, which he finally entered in the album at Elbingerode' (Holmes Early Visions , pp. 230-31). The same poem was included on pp. 170-171 of Sibylline Leaves (pp. 170-72), with 'inspired additions,' and in the present copy Carlyon has added this autobiographical note: 'Written during a tour, on foot, over the Hartz mountains, in company with Greenough -- the two Parrys -- Chester, young Blumenbach (son of Professor B.) and my self. May -- 1799. C.C.' Carlyon later included his reminiscences of Coleridge in Early Years and Late Reflections (1836, 2 vols.). Shepherd p. 48.