Inquiring Spirit

When this work was first prepared for publication in 1949 the

Notebooks and Collected Letters were still in manuscript, and many

of the printed works, if not unavailable, were scarce. The continuing publication of

Coleridge's works has not lessened the demand for a general introduction to

Coleridge's mind and its workings. 

Selections from works including

The Friend, Essays on His Own Times, Aids to Reflection,

the Statesman's Manual, Confessions of an Inquiring Spirit, and

Table Talk, and from other lesser known works are arranged by topic. The

subjects – psychology, education, language, logic and philosophy, literary

criticism, the arts, science, society, religion and his contemporaries –

reflect the astonishing range of Coleridge's intellectual interests. The revised

edition of this anthology is still the best introduction to the prose works of an

inquiring spirit.

There is a fine introductory essay, and each section has an

introduction of its own. The annotation is apt, and the index efficient. The whole

book, in short, has been ordered with the distinction which is characteristic of

Professor Coburn.