This sixteen-volume set was written by Samuel Taylor Coleridge and published between 1850 and 1875. The bindings match, so it's a uniform set, the first title was published by William Pickering, eleven were published by Edward Moxon, the last two by John Pearson and Edward Howell, and they were edited by Sara Coleridge, the daughter of Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Derwent Coleridge, the third son of the author, or by Henry Nelson Coleridge, the nephew of Samuel Taylor Coleridge. The titles were Essays On His Own Times (published 1850), Lay Sermons (published in 1852), On The Constitution Of The Church And State (1852), Notes Theological, Political, and Miscellaneous (1853), Notes On English Divines (1853), The Friend (1863), Confessions Of An Inquiring Spirit (1863), Aids to Reflection (1867), Dramatic Works (1868), The Poems Of … (1870), Osorio (1873), and Notes and Lectures (1875). Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772 - 1834) was an English poet, literary critic, and theologian who, along with William Wordsworth, founded the Romantic movement in England and was a member of the Lake poets. He was most famous for the poems "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner" and "Kubla Khan", as well as the major prose work "Biographia Literaria." His critical work, especially on William Shakespeare, was highly influential, and he helped introduce German idealist philosophy to English-speaking cultures. Coleridge also coined unusual words and phrases, like "suspension of disbelief", and he had a major influence on Ralph Waldo Emerson and American transcendentalism. His father wanted Samuel to become a vicar, but young Samuel read voraciously and was especially fond of The Arabian Nights, a book full of intrigue and adventure. When his father discovered the book, the father burned it; this event forced Coleridge to turn inward and use his imagination to entertain himself. After his father died, Samuel was sent to London to study at a grammar school for underprivileged children; Coleridge received a comprehensive education in the classics as well as British literature, and he became friends with poet and essayist Charles Lamb. Coleridge entered Jesus College in Cambridge, intending to become a clergyman; he began to write poetry at this time, but it didn't take fully, and he became interested in current events and liberal politics. Throughout his adult life, Coleridge suffered from anxiety and depression, and it's been speculated that he had a bipolar disorder, but that had not been diagnosed as a medical condition until the 1850's and later. He was physically unhealthy, which may have stemmed from a bout of rheumatic fever and other childhood illnesses; he was treated for these conditions with laudanum, which fostered a lifelong opium addiction, and he was viewed as a genius whose addiction to opium kept him from reaching his full potential. Coleridge married a woman named Sara Fricker in 1795, but it was an unhappy marriage. In 1804 they separated, he fell in love with a woman named Sara Hutchinson, but remained married to the first Sara until his death. His poem, "The Eolian Harp", was the first of his conversation poems - a poem with a conversational tone - and a style which would make him famous, and his friendship with William Wordsworth would influence the course of his poetry: Wordsworth's poetry focused on nature, a common theme of Romanticism, and as a result, Coleridge began incorporating nature into his poems. But he struggled with his personal life and physical health, and luckily the brothers Josiah and Thomas Wedgwood were so impressed by Coleridge's intelligence and promise that, in 1798, they offered him an annuity of £150 as a means of subsistence while he pursued his intellectual dreams, and he used his new independence to visit Germany with Wordsworth. In the end, comfort came from an unexpected source. Unable to produce extended work or break the opium habit, he spent a long period with friends in Wiltshire, where he was introduced to Archbishop Robert Leighton's commentary on the First Letter of Peter, and in the writings of this 17th-century divine, he found a combination of tenderness and sanctity that appealed to him deeply and seemed to offer an attitude towards life that he could fall back on. The discovery marked an important shift of balance - Christianity, previously a point of reference for him, now became his "official" creed. And even though his enormous potential was never fully realized, his stature as a poet has never been in doubt; in "Kubla Khan" and "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner", he wrote two of the greatest poems in English literature, and he had a reputation as one of the most important of all English literary critics, largely on the basis of his Biographia Literaria. He viewed the essential element of literature as a union of emotion and thought and described that as imagination, his childhood fantasy come true. The books have five raised bands, six gilt-ruled compartments with black labels, gilt lettering, and gilt devices on the spines, polished calf covers with double gilt-fillet borders, marbled endpapers with the armorial Hoar bookplate on the front paste-downs, all of them have the half-titles, and all the edges are marbled. Sara Coleridge (1802 - 1852) was an English author and translator, and the third child and only daughter of the poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge and his wife Sara Fricker. Derwent Coleridge (1800 - 1883) was the third son of Samuel Taylor Coleridge and a distinguished English scholar and author. Henry Nelson Coleridge (1798 - 1843) was the nephew of Samuel Taylor Coleridge. The details for each book: The first three volumes in the set are titled "Essays On His Own Times Forming A Second Series Of The Friend", by Samuel Taylor Coleridge, in three volumes, edited by his daughter [Sara Coleridge], published by William Pickering in London in 1850. The first volume has four pages of Contents, a seven-page Preface, an Introduction that runs from [xix] - xciii, and 212 pages of text. The second volume of "Essays" has four pages of Contents, and the text runs from 295 to page 676, and the third volume of "Essays" has six pages of Contents, the text runs from 677 to page 998, the Notes run from 999 to 1030, and an Appendix runs from 1031 to 1034 at the rear. The next book is "Lay Sermons: I. The Statesman's Manual, and II. Blessed Are Ye That Sow Beside All Waters, Edited With The Author's Last Corrections And Notes", by Derwent Coleridge, M.A., Third Edition, published in London by Edward Moxon in 1852 and printed in London by Bradbury and Evans. The book has a sixteen-page Preface (b - xx) and 267 pages of text. The next book in the set is "On The Constitution Of The Church And State, According To The Idea Of Each", by Samuel Taylor Coleridge, edited by Henry Nelson Coleridge from the Author's Corrected Copy with Notes, Fourth Edition, published in London by Edward Moxon in 1852 and printed by Bradbury and Evans, with one page of Contents, a Preface that runs from vii - xxx, and has 224 pages of text. The fifth book in the set is titled "Notes Theological, Political, and Miscellaneous" by Samuel Taylor Coleridge, edited by Derwent Coleridge, published in London by Edward Moxon in 1853 and printed by Bradbury and Evans, with a four-page Preface, four pages of Contents, and 415 pages of text. The sixth book is "Notes On English Divines" by Samuel Taylor Coleridge, edited by Derwent Coleridge and also published in 1853 by Edward Moxon and printed by Bradbury and Evans, with a two-page Advertisement by Derwent Coleridge, a five-page Preface, an Advertisement by Henry Nelson Coleridge ["H.N.C."], one page of Contents, and 356 pages of text. The next book is "The Friend: A Series of Essays To Aid In The Formation Of Fixed Principles In Politics, Morals, And Religion, with Literary Amusements Interspersed, by Samuel Taylor Coleridge, With the Author's Last Corrections And an Appendix, and With A Synoptical Table of the Contents of the Works", A New Edition Revised, in two volumes, edited by Henry Nelson Coleridge, and published in London by Edward Moxon in 1863 and printed by Bradbury and Evans. The first volume here has a one-page Notice by Derwent Coleridge, an Advertisement to the Third Edition and an Object and Plan of the Work in three pages, a six-page Table of Contents, and 355 pages of text. The second volume with this title has 316 pages of text and eight Appendices (A - H) that run from 317 to page 351 at the rear. The next book is "Confessions Of An Inquiring Spirit" by Samuel Taylor Coleridge, from the Author's MS, edited by Henry Nelson Coleridge, Fourth Edition, published in London by Edward Moxon in 1863 and printed by Bradbury and Evans, with an Advertisement to the First Edition, and an Advertisement to the Second Edition and Present Edition, and 175 pages of text. Then comes "Aids To Reflection" by Samuel Taylor Coleridge, edited by the Rev. Derwent Coleridge, M.A., Twelfth Edition, published in London by Edward Moxon in 1867 and printed by Bradbury and Evans, with a three-page Advertisement by Derwent and a three-page advertisement to the Fourth and Fifth editions, a one-page Author's Address to the Reader, the Author's Preface (six pages), two pages of Contents, 343 pages of text, and an Appendix that runs from page 344 to 352 at the rear. The next title is "The Dramatic Works of Saml. Taylor Coleridge" edited by Derwent Coleridge, A New Edition, published in London by Edward Moxon in 1868 and printed by Bradbury and Evans, with a ten-page Preface, one page of Contents, 422 pages of text, and five pages of Notes to the Translation Reprinted from the First Edition at the rear. We're almost done, folks. Then "The Poems Of Samuel Taylor Coleridge" edited by Derwent and Sara Coleridge, with an Appendix. A New and Enlarged Edition, with a New Brief Life of the Author, with a frontis portrait of Samuel Taylor Coleridge when he was 26, the book was published in London in 1870 by E. Moxon and printed by Sanson and Co. in Edinburgh, with a two-page Advertisement (giving thanks to the editor), a one-page Advertisement from Derwent Coleridge to his sister, who had died, an eight-page Preface to the edition of 1852, a five-page Preface by Samuel Taylor Coleridge, an Introductory Essay that runs from xxiii to lix, seven pages of Contents, 378 pages of text, ten pages of Notes, and an Appendix at the rear which ends at 429. Then "Osorio: A Tragedy As Originally Written in 1707" by Samuel Taylor Coleridge and published in London by John Pearson in 1873 and printed by Jas. Ward of London, with A Monograph from v - xxii, and 204 pages of text. And "Shakespeare, Ben Jonson, Beaumont and Fletcher, Notes And Lectures" by S. T. Coleridge, a New Edition published in Liverpool by Edward Howell in MDCCCLXXV [1875], with three pages of Contents and 318 pages of text. The books measure 6 3/4 x 4 1/2 in. wide, with tights bindings, crisp pages and clean text, and just light wear or light rubbing for the most part. The three volumes of "Essays" have light rubbing at the heel and crown, at the tips, and along the edges of the spine and a front board; "Lay Sermons" has the same, just light rubbing on the heel and crown, along the edges of the spine, and at the tips; "On The Constitution Of Church And State" has a tad of rubbing on the heel and crown and light rubbing on the front edge of the spine; "Notes Theological, Political, and Miscellaneous" the same - a tad of rubbing on the heel and crown, the edges of the spine, and at the tips; the first volume of "Notes on English Divines" has a tad of rubbing at the heel and crown, at the tips, and along the edges of the spine, and the second volume has light wear at the crown and light rubbing at the heel and along the edges of the spine and at the tips; the two volumes of "The Friend" are basically in the same condition - a tad of rubbing at the heel and crown, along the edges of the spine, and light rubbing at the tips; "An Inquiring Spirit" has specks of rubbing along the edges of the spine and at the heel and crown; "Aids to Reflection" has light wear at the crown and a tad at the heel, light rubbing at the edges of the spine and at the tips; "Dramatic Works" has light rubbing along the edges of the spine and a tad of rubbing at the tips; "Poems" has wear at the heel and crown, light rubbing in the edges of the spine, and specks of rubbing at the tips; "Osorio" has wear at the crown and the front cover has a split along the spine; and "Shakespeare … Notes and Lectures" has a corner tip missing on the marbled endpaper in front, light wear on the heel and crown and a few spots of rubbing on the edges of the boards, and aside from the split along the spine of Osorio, an attractive set with just modest wear or rubbing. We've seen one set with nine volumes in it that goes for $450 and another with twelve volumes that goes for a little over $3000 and that's it, so this is a scarce set, with sixteen volumes, in very good condition, by an important author and founder of the Romantic movement in England. #40 #1603