The Dispersal of S.T. Coleridge’s Books

From about 1821 onwards Coleridge speaks of his marginalia as an important, even an integral, part of his writing; and in his will, drawn up in September, 1829, he provided against the immediate dispersal of his library.  Joseph Henry Green, “the dear friend, the companion, partner, and helpmate of my worthiest studies,” was appointed literary executor and was bequeathed “all my books, manuscripts, and personal estates and effects whatsoever (except the pictures and engravings hereinafter bequeathed (to Ann Gillman) upon trust, to sell and dispose thereof...according to his discretion.”  Green was also given the option of buying the books at his own price “inasmuch as their chief value will be dependent on his possession of them.”  In a separate paragraph of the will Coleridge explained this unusual arrangement to his family, and before his death clarified the provisions of the will by verbal instructions to Green and Henry Nelson Coleridge.

When Coleridge died in July, 1834, most of his books must have been in Gillman’s house in Highgate; others were no doubt already with Green.  Then there were a number of Green’s and Gillman’s books which Coleridge had annotated at their request.  Coleridge had certainly given some of his books to members of his family before his death, but no great number of them.  Green, with Gillman’s help, seems to have sorted the books carefully and returned annotated books which did not belong to either of them.  George Frere notes on the fly-leaf of Reliquiae Baxterianae (1696, follo): “This book was lent by me to Samuel Taylor Coleridge, at Hampstead, and returned to me by his executors after his death, with his marginal notes.”  (This book is now in the Harvard Library: the Gillman-Ashley copy in the British Museum is a scribal facsimile of it.)  A handsome legacy – not from Coleridge – enabled Green in 1835 to exercise his option of buying Coleridge’s books.  By amicable arrangement he divided the books as necessary to prepare the posthumous remains for publication.  Gillman wrote his Life of Coleridge (published in 1838); Green worked for twenty-eight years trying to complete Coleridge’s opus maximum (his results were published posthumously in 1865); H. N. Coleridge and his wife Sara undertook the more “literary” task of reissuing Coleridge’s published work and of preparing and publishing scattered poems, essays, lecture notes and marginalia.  H. N. C. issued four volumes of Literary Remains between 1836 and 1839.  For these volumes marginalia were taken from one of Lamb’s books and from a few books belonging to Wordsworth.  Cary, Southey, Derwent, Edward and H. N. Coleridge; but most of the marginalia came from Gillman’s and Green’s books.  In 1853 Derwent Coleridge published Notes on English Divines, adding some new material to a selection from Literary Remains; and later in the same year Notes Theological, Political, and Miscellaneous, two-thirds of which was unpublished marginal material drawn from Gillman’s books and from three of Lamb’s.

Gillman’s library was sold in 1843, shortly after his death; Green died in 1863 and his library was sold in 1880.  The auctioneers’ marked catalogues of both sales are preserved in the British Museum.  From these it is possible to identify a number of Coleridge association books previously unknown or incompletely recorded, and to outline the process of dispersal of those books which did not pass into the possession of the Coleridge family.  Green bequeathed all his books to his wife, who in 1879 bequeathed to Derwent Coleridge “all the portraits, books and writings which were bequeathed to my late dear husband by the late Samuel Taylor Coleridge.”  The two principal family collections recorded by Haney in 1903 and 1934 amount to more than 100 titles.  Since only one or two of these privately owned works can be traced back to the Gillman or Green sale, the process of dispersal through the sale-rooms can be described separately.