Schiller

1800 · 307974 — London: Printed for N.T. Longman and O. Rees By G. Woodfall 1800. First edition of Coleridge's English translation. Engraved portrait. iv 214; ii ii general title 157 1 ads pp. with half-title to first part and general title "Wallenstein. A Drama in Two Parts" bound with second part. 8vo. Period half calf and marbled boards green morocco spine label. Some foxing to portrait and first few leaves. First edition of Coleridge's English translation. Engraved portrait. iv 214; ii ii general title 157 1 ads pp. with half-title to first part and general title "Wallenstein. A Drama in Two Parts" bound with second part. 8vo. The first English edition of Schiller's Wallenstein set in Germany during the Thirty Years War and translated by Samuel Taylor Coleridge from a manuscript copy of the first German edition of 1799. Coleridge completed much of the translation - a free and poetic translation in blank verse - at Lamb's home in London seated at his desk in "a voluminous five-penny floral dressing-gown decorated with hieroglyphics . looking suspiciously 'like a conjuror' according to Lamb" Holmes Coleridge: Early Visions p. 261. The translation which omitted the first part of Schiller's trilogy Wallenstein's Camp was done in part to capitalize on the contemporary fashion for Schiller whose verse-drama The Robbers Coleridge had long admired. It was one of many of Coleridge's translation schemes hatched during his time abroad studying the language and literature of Germany. "In the event the project was a financial disaster earning him only £50 in advances while Longman lost £250 on the combined editions" ibid p. 267. Despite that Coleridge "was proud of his work and long afterwards described it as 'a specimen of my happiest attempt during the prime manhood of my intellect before I had been buffeted by adversity or crossed by fatality" ibid p. 268. ESTC T61110 & T61109; Wise Coleridge 16 & 17 Printed for N.T. Longman and O. Rees, By G. Woodfall unknown books