[COLERIDGE, SAMUEL TAYLOR]. Sibylline Leaves: A Collection of Poems. London, Rest Fenner, 1817.
[Bound with:]
[COLERIDGE, SAMUEL TAYLOR]. Christabel: Kubla Khan, A Vision; The Pains of Sleep. London: printed for John Murray, by William Bulmer and Co., 1816.
First editions. Two works bound in one. Leather-bound. Hardcover. Octavo (215 x 135 x 25 mm). Pp. [4], x, [2 errata], 303; viii, 64. Bound in stunning near contemporary full calf, smooth spine, covers elaborately blind and gilt ruled and tooled, gilt inner dentelles, all page edges marbled, endpapers marbled, initial and terminal blanks present, half-titles present, errata present in first part. R. B . Lusk, of Greenock, bookseller's ticket to corner of front pastedown. First work printed by S. Curtis, of Camberwell. Second work printed by W. Bulmer and Co., Cleveland-row, St. James's. Provenance: H. M. Hunter's armorial bookplate to front pastedown. Condition: NEAR FINE. Binding tight and secure, the covers with some very light shelf wear. Interior largely fresh and clean with some faint spotting to endpapers. Lacking advertisements. Scarce thus.
Notes: Both parts are first editions, first impressions - rarely bound together. Among Coleridge's major works included with Sibylline Leaves [the first collected edition of Coleridge's poetry] are: "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner"- (published for the first time under Coleridge's name), "The Nightingale," "Dejection: An Ode" and "France: An Ode." [Ashley I, p.206; Wise Coleridge, 45; Tinker 697; Sterling 190]. Christabel, containing the first printings of three of Coleridge's most celebrated poems. As early as 1803, Coleridge was finishing "Christabel" and discussing publication. It was not published until 1816, however, along with Coleridge's visionary "Kubla Kahn" and "The Pains of Sleep." Lord Byron, who on first hearing the poem in 1815 wrote to Coleridge in praise of "the wildest and finest [poem] I have ever heard in that kind of composition...all took a hold on my imagination which I shall never wish to shake off...", convinced Murray to publish 'Christabel' (see Griggs, Collected Letters of Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1959), vol. IV, p.600-601). [Ashley I, p.204; Grolier English 70; Hayward 207; Tinker 693; Wise Coleridge 32].
