The Prelude
Suppose the Earth. . . Kathleen Coburn (ed.), The Notebooks of Samuel Taylor Coleridge, 1794–1826, Princeton University Press and Routledge, 1957–90, vol. 3, 1808–1819.
the hardest building to describe in London. . . Ian Nairn, Nairn’s London, Harmondsworth: Penguin, 2014, p. 111.
closely shut up. . . The Times, 11 Dec 1811, p. 3.
I said I belonged to the house. . . The Times, 11 Dec 1811, p. 3.
Marr, Marr. . . The Times, 11 Dec 1811, p. 3.
The child, where’s the child? . . . The Times, 11 Dec 1811, p. 3.
What is true of friendship. . . Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Seven Lectures on Shakespeare and Milton, with an introductory preface by J. Payne Collier, London: Chapman and Hall, 1856, p. 93.
Coleridge said in his advertisement. . . Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Biographia Literaria, edited by James Engell and W. Jackson Bate, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1983, I, p. 60n.
the only man to whom. . . Griggs, I, p. 334.
scene of struggle. . . Recollections, p. 293.
Few writers . . . had so keen. . . Peter Ackroyd, Dan Leno and the Limehouse Golem, London: Minerva, 1995, p. 38.
the loveliest spot . . . William Wordsworth, ‘Farewell. Composed in the Year 1802’.
the practice of putting the chain. . . ‘Postscript’, p. 98.
quite incapable of fear. . . H. A. Page, I, p. 192.
There must be raging . . . ‘On Knocking’, p. 5. De Quincey’s image of an internal hell is lifted from Milton’s description of the fallen Satan in Book IV of Paradise Lost: ‘The hell within him; for within him Hell/ He brings. . .’
Some of our contemporaries . . . De Quincey, ‘Some Thoughts on Biography’, in G. Lindop (ed.), The Works of Thomas De Quincey, XXI, London: Pickering and Chatto, 2003, p. 26.
We should not assert for De Quincey. . . Hogg, p. 1.
review-like essay. . . Walter Bagehot, ‘The First Edinburgh Reviewers’, Literary Studies, London: Dent, 1911, 1.1–35, p. 4.
one boundless self-devouring Review. . . Thomas Carlyle, ‘Characteristics’, Edinburgh Review, 54, 1831.
a bat . . . on the wings of prose. . . Leslie Stephen, Hours in a Library, London: Smith, Elder & Co., 1892, I, p. 240.
wearisome and useless. . . De Quincey, ‘A Sketch from Childhood’, Instructor, Edinburgh: 1851, p. 147.
We might imagine this descent. . . Masson, X, p. 344.
unfortunately diminutive. . . Middle Years, pt 1, p. 255.
I wish . . . he was not so little . . . Carol Bolton and Tim Fulford (eds), The Collected Letters of Robert Southey, 1804–9, University of Maryland: A Romantic Circles Electronic Edition, Part 3, no. 1534.
this child has been in hell. . . Thomas Carlyle, Reminiscences, edited by James Anthony Froude, New York, Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1881, p. 203.
Chapter 1: Books
‘suddenly’ to a ‘violent termination’. . . Masson, I, p. 28.
in the house of a labouring man. . . Masson, I, p. 37.
was rapidly approaching. . . De Quincey, ‘Sketches of Life and Manners’, Tait’s Edinburgh Magazine, 1834, p. 22.
lady architect. . . Masson, I, p. 404.
The door so softly. . . deeper than the Danube. . . Masson, I, p. 42.
Nothing. . . a sorrow without a voice. . . Masson, I, p. 9.
on a summer day. . . on a summer day. . . Masson, I, pp. 41–2.
without fear. . . closed. . . ‘Mail-Coach’, p. 230.
shut out forever. . . Masson, I, p. 43.
sank back. . . clamorously for death. . . Masson, I, pp. 44–8.
burst of. . . open grave. . . Masson, I, p. 50.
a man, of elegant tastes. . . Masson, I, p. 130.
deep and memorable. . . Masson, I, p. 132.
clouds were dispersed. . . Thomas Percival, A Father’s Instructions, Consisting of Moral Tales, Fables, and Reflections, Robert Dodsley, 1775, p. 21.
the finest. . . astonishment of science. . . Masson, I, p. 35.
How much the greatest Event. . . Lord John Russell (ed.), Memorials and Correspondence of Charles James Fox, Blanchard and Lea, 1853, II, p. 361.
With freedom, order and good government. . . William Pitt, The Speeches of the Right Honourable William Pitt, edited by W. S. Hathaway, London: Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, and Brown, 1817, II, p. 36.
the British turned Louis into a hero. . . see John Barrell, ‘Sad Stories’, Imagining the King’s Death: Figurative Treason, Fantasies of Regicide, 1793–1796, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000.
summer and winter came again. . . Masson, I, p. 34.
terrific. . . evil and strife. . . Masson, I, p. 35.
anniversary of the battle of So-and-So. . . David Masson, De Quincey, London: Macmillan, 1881, p. 107.
What is to be thought of sudden death?. . . ‘Mail-Coach’, p. 219.
Wonderful it is. . . Perceptions. . . Recollections, p. 259.
‘fugitive’ spiders. . . ‘Suspiria’, p. 130.
the most upright man. . . Masson, I, p. 26.
circumstances of luxury. . . Masson, I, p. 30.
principal room. . . Masson, I, p. 26.
would have been able to. . . St Kitts. . . Masson, I, p. 55.
raising altars and burning incense. . . ‘A Sketch from Childhood’, Instructor, 1851, p. 147.
instant amusement. . . Masson, I, p. 25.
unusual solemnity. . . Masson, I, p. 57.
midsummer night’s dream. . . ‘A Sketch from Childhood’, Instructor, p. 174.
the endless days of summer. . .‘Confessions’, p. 83.
omen of anticipation. . . Eaton, p. 284.
a perfect craze . . . choose to build. . . Masson, I, p. 59.
detested all books. . . dream upon it. . . Masson, I, p. 62.
slovenly and forlorn. . . Masson, I, p. 70.
What is this I hear, child?. . . H. A. Page, I, p. 30.
a most splendid. . . same hour. . . Masson, I, pp. 116–19.
a new book. . . Masson, I, p. 115.
Were the lamps of our equipage clean and bright?. . . Japp, I, pp. 9–10.
a mighty theatre. . . infinite review. . . ‘Suspiria’, p. 151.
Trial by jury, English laws of evidence. . . Japp, I, p. 9.
Had the Vatican. . . carry it off to sea. . . ‘Suspiria’, p. 135.
What a huge thing. . . crack of doom. . . ‘Suspiria’, pp. 136–8.
at the front door. . . set of ropes. . . ‘Suspiria’, p. 141.
Into a downright. . . yet a higher flight. . . Masson, X, pp. 38–40.
An infinite book. . . see Jorge Luis Borges, ‘The Thousand and One Nights’, The Georgia Review, XXXVIII, No. 3 (Fall 1984), pp. 564–74.
involutes. . . Masson, I, p. 128.
compound experiences. . . ‘Suspiria’, p. 107.
At the opening. . . corresponding keys, Masson, I, pp. 128–9.
the opening scene of ‘Aladdin’. . . De Quincey uses the image again in ‘The Nation of London’, where he describes how his visit as a boy to St Paul’s Cathedral was hampered by the vendor selling tickets to see the sights: ‘I ask, does no action at common law lie against the promoters of such enormous abuses? Oh, thou fervent reformer – whose fatal tread he that puts his ear to the ground may hear at a distance coming onwards upon every road. . .’
Chapter 2: Childhood and Schooltime
all the signs of the Zodiac. . . Tobias Smollett, The Expedition of Humphry Clinker, Munich, 2005, p. 40.
Another stupid party. . . Claire Tomalin, Jane Austen, A Life, Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1997, pp. 171–2.
mattermoney. . . Smollett, Humphry Clinker, p. 352.
cold reason. . . Letter from Walpole to Mme Du Deffand, quoted in W. S. Lewis (ed.), The Castle of Otranto, Oxford: World’s Classics, 1982, p. x.
no one. . . poor judge of a novel. . . Eaton, p. 467.
purgatory. . . Lindop, p. 23.
decaying condition. . . Masson, I, p
. 288.
crowds of inquirers. . . Masson, I, p. 289.
the very idea. . . hereditary poet laureate. . . Thomas Paine, Rights of Man, edited by E. Foner, Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1969, p. 83.
the age of chivalry. . . French excesses. . . Recollections, p. 220.
object. . . down their faces. . . see Jenny Uglow, In These Times, Living in Britain Through Napoleon’s Wars, 1793–1815, London: Faber, 2015, p. 21.
decent drapery of life. . . ‘Confessions’, p. 3.
Suddenness . . . terror. . . Edmund Burke, A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of our Ideas of the Sublime and the Beautiful, edited by Adam Philips, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1990, pp. 76, 103, 53.
Epigrammatic. . . quotations. . . Jordan, p. 251.
travelled. . . politeness. . . Masson, XIV, p. 96.
everyone of celebrity. . . Dr Johnson &c. . . Jordan, p. 252.
was honoured. . . extempore. . . Masson, I, p. 152.
I neither read. . . till Easter. . . H. A. Page, I, p. 36.
aged seventeen. . . We cannot be sure of the date of William’s birth, but it is likely to have been 1782.
a contemplative dreamer like myself. . . Masson, I, p. 115.
no honours to excite one. . . Japp, I, pp. 40–1.
forty years. . . Bristol. . . Masson, I, p. 393.
despicable place. . . twenty. . . John Dix, The Life of Thomas Chatterton, including his Unpublished Poems, London: Hamilton Adams, 1837, p. 175.
fix his eyes. . . Charles Bonnycastle Willcox, The Poetical Works of Thomas Chatterton, with Notices on his Life, History of the Rowley Controversy and Notes illustrative of the Poems, Cambridge: W. P. Grant, 1842, p. lxxiv.
a miscellaneous. . . hieroglyphics. . . Henry H. Jennings, Thomas Chatterton: The Boy Poet of Bristol, A Biographical Sketch, Bristol: St Augustine’s Press, 1868, p. 13.
the first modern attempt. . . Walter Scott, introduction to The Castle of Otranto, Edinburgh, 1811, p. iii.
Bristol’s mercantile. . . miserable hamlet. . . Sir Herbert Croft, Love and Madness: A Story Too True, London: G. Kearsly, 1780, p. 176.
torn-up pieces of manuscript. . . see Richard Holmes’s compelling essay on Chatterton in Sidetracks: Explorations of a Romantic Biographer, London: HarperCollins, 2000, pp. 5–50.
adventurer. . . by expedients. . . Thomas Warton, The History of English Poetry: From the Close of the Eleventh to the Commencement of the Eighteenth Century, London: J. Dodsley, 1824, II, p. 477.
murdered Chatterton. . . Croft, Love and Madness, p. 172.
Whom did he deceive. . . Thomas De Quincey, ‘Great Forgers, Chatterton, and Walpole, and Junius’, in Alexander H. Japp (ed.), The Posthumous Works of Thomas De Quincey, London: Heinemann, 1891, I, p. 125.
forbidden rooms. . . In 1856, De Quincey’s future editor, David Masson, published a novel called Chatterton: The Story of a Year, in which he described the last moments of Chatterton’s life in a way that would have delighted De Quincey. Having climbed the narrow stairs to his room: ‘He entered and locked the door behind him. The Devil was abroad that night in the sleeping city. Down narrow and squalid courts his presence was felt, where savage men seized miserable women by the throat and the neighbourhood was roused by yells of murder. . . Up in the wretched garrets his presence was felt, where solitary mothers gazed on their infants and longed to kill them.’
ghost crab. . . This image is used by Patrick Bridgwater in De Quincey’s Gothic Masquerade, Amsterdam and New York: Rodopi, 2004, p. 63.
carried. . . elder poets. . . Masson, II, p. 58.
if it be possible. . . Japp (ed.), Posthumous Works of Thomas De Quincey, p. 128.
Poor Chatterton. . . my friend. . . Linda Kelly, The Marvellous Boy: The Life and Myth of Thomas Chatterton, London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1971, p. 230.
panegyric instead of satire. . . Joseph Cottle, Reminiscences of Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Robert Southey, London: Houlston and Stoneman, 1847, p. 193.
the greatest event. . .mind. . . De Quincey remembers this as being 1799, but it is more likely to have been the spring or summer of 1798. Lyrical Ballads was published in the autumn of 1798, and it is unlikely that a manuscript of one of the poems would be in circulation after the book itself was available. James Losh of Bath, a friend of Wordsworth, remembered reading in manuscript ‘a curious but fine little poem of Wordsworth’s’ during the spring of 1798. See Mary Moorman, ‘Wordsworth’s Commonplace Book’, Notes & Queries, 202 (1957), p. 405.
Nothing. . . my own being. . . Jared Curtis, The Fenwick Notes of William Wordsworth, Bristol: Bristol Classical Press, 1993, p. 159.
dark, cold place. . . Coleridge, Biographia Literaria, I, p. 141.
How deep. . . such a ballad!. . . Hogg, p. 93.
guidance. . . Jordan, p. 37.
religious fervour. . . Coleridge, Biographia Literaria, II, p. 9.
Chapter 3: Schooltime (continued)
the feeling therein developed. . . R. L. Brett and A. R. Jones (eds), Lyrical Ballads, London and New York: Routledge, 2005, p. 293.
language of conversation. . . awkwardness. . . Brett and Jones (eds), Lyrical Ballads, p. 49.
procrastination . . . too-lateness. . . Japp, II, p. 142.
full thirty years. . . Masson, II, p. 59.
an old quiz. . . Masson, I, p. 393.
the originality of the Lyrical Ballads. . . see Robert Mayo, ‘The Contemporaneity of the Lyrical Ballads’ (PMLA, lxix, 1954, pp. 486–522). Mayo argues that the Lyrical Ballads conformed in many respects to the popular poetry of the magazines in the 1790s. It was ‘experimental’ less in its innovations than in the freshness and intensity it brought to already familiar traditions.
The name of Wordsworth. . . contempt. . . Masson, II, p. 60.
poems from the first edition appeared in twenty-three separate papers. . . Patricia Gael, ‘Lyrical Ballads in British Periodicals, 1798–1800’, Wordsworth Circle, Winter 2013.
in an element of danger. . . Masson, I, p. 390.
mere beds. . . shrubberies. . . Masson, I, p. 283.
This was a tender point. . . Black Letter period. . . Masson, I, p. 168.
the sublimity. . . gloom and uncertainty. . . Masson, I, pp. 178–82.
first view. . . greater distances. . . Masson, III, p. 296. Readers of the Whispering Gallery passage in De Quincey’s revised edition of Confessions of an English Opium-Eater have remarked that he misremembered its effect: the sound which begins in a state of muffled secrecy arrives not magnified but clarified. De Quincey’s memory always tended towards amplification rather than elucidation.
Depths. . . gloomy recesses. . . G. Lindop (ed.), Works, 20, p. 337.
exploding like minute guns. . . Japp (ed.), Posthumous Works of Thomas De Quincey, I, p. 77.
down into. . . able to describe. . . Japp, p. 32.
Dullness was the downside of sublimity. . . see De Quincey, ‘Schlosser’s History of the Eighteenth Century’, in John E. Jordan (ed.), De Quincey as Critic, London: Routledge, 1973, p. 314.
Eleusinian mysteries. . . Masson, I, p. 212.
my profoundest sympathies. . . Masson, I, p. 219.
this morning. . . so are you. . . Masson, I, p. 223.
old Irish nobility . . . cornucopia. . . Masson, I, p. 325.
In England. . . microscope. . . Japp, pp. 37–8.
Reading, Hunting . . . elemental war. . . Japp, I, pp. 28–9. The line, ‘from some high cliff superior’, is not from Shakespeare but Akenside’s mid-eighteenth century didactic poem, Pleasures of Imagination.
some victim. . . antique school-room. . . Masson, I, p. 331.
stir out of doors. . . conjured up. . . Japp, pp. 53–5.
trifling degree of cleanliness. . . Friedrich Engels, The Condition of the Working Class in England, London: Swan Sonnenschein & Co., 1892, p. 53.
Series of unfurnished . . . cauliflower. . . Masson, III, pp. 247–52.
worm-eaten passages. . . Masson, III, p. 271.
slumbering in the mind. . . ‘On Wordsworth’s Poetry’, in Jordan (ed.), De Quincey as Critic, p. 416.
a profound secret. . . Masson, II, p. 60.
All good poetry. . . into neglect. . . Brett and Jones (eds), Lyrical Ballads, pp. 291, 294.
the most finished. . . fine arts. . . ‘Wordsworth and Southey, Affinities and Differences’, in Jordan (ed.), De Quincey as Critic, p. 427.
You must expect. . . introduce you. . . Japp, I, p. 61.
fraternisers. . . with ingratitude. . . Masson, II, pp. 127–8.
genius . . . of the highest class. . . see Henry Roscoe, The Life of William Roscoe, London: Cadell and Blackwood, 1833, p. 233: ‘With the little volume of Mr. Coleridge’s poems I have been greatly delighted – his genius is of the highest class. The characteristics of a fervid imagination and a highly cultivated taste are visible in every page.’ For an excellent exploration of De Quincey’s relationship with, and debt to, the Everton coterie see Daniel Sanjiv Roberts, ‘De Quincey’s Discovery of Lyrical Ballads, The Politics of Reading’, Studies in Romanticism, 36 (Winter 1997), pp. 511–32.
Bristol is not. . . Roscoe, Life of William Roscoe, I, pp. 231–3.
the manners of good sense. . . Griggs, I, pp. 607, 2, 746.
To me. . . of a divine art. . . Masson, II, p. 129.
hallowed to my own thoughts. . . Masson, II, p. 139.
searched east and west. . . Masson, II, p. 139.
a pretty duodecimo. . . Masson, III, p. 312.
ancient gothic monastery. . . Masson, II, p. 11.
Sir Robert’s day. . . on its stage. . . Masson, I, p. 409.
Every human being. . . I govern you? . . . Japp, I, pp. 73–4.
transformation in a pantomime. . . Uglow, p. 289.
army with banners. . . Masson, III, p. 289.
he had been uniformly . . . power. . . ‘Confessions’, p. 12.
a sort of trance. . . upon the stairs. . . Masson, III, p. 297.
I dressed myself . . . archididasculus. . . ‘Confessions’, pp. 12–14.
deep, deep magnet. . . Masson, III, p. 283.
Chapter 4: Residence in London
hallowed character. . . embarrassment. . . Masson, III, p. 284.
Sphinx’s riddle. . . Masson, III, p. 287.
confluent at the post office. . . Masson, III, p. 286.
what Wordsworth. . . heart-corroding doubt. . . Masson, III, pp. 279–84.
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