Description
Poems. Leeds: F.E. Bingley, & London: Baldwin and Cradock, 1833. First edition, first issue, 8vo, final leaf is an errata, yellow endpapers, binders ticket of D.D. Batten, Clapham Common, contemporary maroon morocco blindstamped & ruled to boards, gilt title label, g.e., worn to joints & extremities, with inserted between pages 34 & 35 a printed leaf titled "The Triad" by Wordsworth printed on pink paper & signed Edith Southey in lower margin
Footnote
Note: The sheet "The Traid" is probably the first sheet of a three leaf publication [only found in the British Library (London? 1860?] describing the virtues of the three daughters of the Lake Poets. The British Library copy of this leaf is white, whilst this copy is pink, suggesting that it may well have been issued as a broadside or slip ballad originating from different paper stocks. The printed fore-margin border of this leaf is not present suggesting it was originally slightly larger & has been trimmed for insertion into this volume. This leaf describes Edith Southey whilst the other two leaves, not present, eulogised the other Lake Poet daughters, Dora Wordsworth & Sara Coleridge. Each recongised the poem as a tribute to her. The first edition was published in The Keepsake in 1828 and was longer by 6 lines. The owner of this leaf, Mary Sanger, was born in the same year, 1804, as Edith Southey and they would have been well known to each other.
On page 34 of the Poems (opposite the inserted leaf) is a charming Sonnet XXXIV "To a Lofty Beauty, from her Poor Kinsman" written by Hartley Coleridge in tribute to Edith Southey and so identified in the Index in pencil. However, within a year of publication of the Poems Edith May Southey (1804-71) had married John Wood Warter (1806-78) at Keswick, prolific author and close friend of Robert Southey who is best remembered for his editing of Southey material.
This is an Association Copy which links the children of the Romantics. Hartley and Edith were cousins and knew each other well from an early age. Hartley Coleridge (1796-1849) was an English poet, biographer, essayist and teacher. He was the eldest son the poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge. His sister, Sara Coleridge, was a poet and translator. In the Autumn of 1800 Samuel Taylor Coleridge moved his wife and young son, Hartley, to the Lake District. They took a home in the Vale of Derwentwater, on the bank of the Greta River, about a mile from Greta Hall, Keswick, the future home of the poet Robert Southey, which was then being built. Hartley spent his early years in the care of Robert Southey at Greta Hall, which possessed the best library in the neighbourhood. In his time at school Hartley was in constant contact with William Wordsworth and his family. He pursued his English studies in Wordsworth's library at Allan Bank in Grasmere, and continued to use the library after the Wordsworth family moved to Rydal Mount.
Mary Sanger (1804-90), née Calvert, was a childhood friend of Sara Coleridge and Dora Wordworth, the childrren of the Romantic Poets, who played together at Keswick. Whilst William Wordsworth & Mary Hutchinson (the previous generation) attended the same Infant School in Penrith, Mary was also a friend of Dorothy from their schooldays. Sara's mother, Sarah, was Coleridge's wife and her sister, Edith Fricker, was married to Southey, thus linking the female side of the Romantic Movement.