Recollections of the Lakes and the Lake Poets: Coleridge, Wordsworth, and Southey (Cambridge Library Collection - Literary Studies) - Softcover

De Quincey, Thomas

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1108066771 ISBN 13: 9781108066778

Publisher: Cambridge University Press, 2013

Synopsis

Thomas De Quincey (1785-1859) described his adolescent discovery of the Lyrical Ballads of Wordsworth and Coleridge as 'an absolute revelation of untrodden worlds, teeming with power and beauty'. The admiring letter he sent to Wordsworth led to friendships with him, Coleridge and Robert Southey. Relations soured over time, though, as De Quincey's opium addiction and debts increased. Following Coleridge's death in 1834, De Quincey began writing his 'Lake Reminiscences', published serially in Tait's Magazine up to 1840. Candid, occasionally bitter, and highlighting flaws such as Coleridge's plagiarism, the recollections offended the surviving poets and their families, yet these vivid portraits attract continued scholarly interest for both the light shed on the subjects and on the author himself. The collected essays, reissued in this 1863 printing of the 1862 first edition, certainly served to confirm the Lake Poets as leading figures of English Romanticism.

About this title

Book Description:

His troubled friendships with Coleridge, Wordsworth and Southey inspired Thomas De Quincey (1785-1859) to write these candid portraits, which first appeared serially between 1834 and 1840. Published together in 1862 (this reissue is of the 1863 printing), the essays confirmed the Lake Poets as leading figures of English Romanticism.

About this edition

• Publisher: Cambridge University Press
• Publication date: 2013
• ISBN 10: 1108066771
• ISBN 13: 9781108066778
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 266