Phil Rice: Easton Press Collector Notes for The Rime of the Ancient Mariner

P. Rice

03/11/2004

Collector Notes for the Easton Press edition of

Samuel Coleridge'sThe Rime of the Ancient Mariner, illustrated by Gustave Doré

Few poets have altered the literary consciousness of a generation as did Samuel Taylor Coleridge, born October 21, 1772, in Ottery St. Mary. The youngest of ten children, Coleridge proved to be something of a prodigy as a student, demonstrating a facility for Greek and Latin as well as an unquenchable thirst for literature at a very young age. With the assistance of a scholarship, his academic prowess enabled him to be enrolled at Cambridge in 1791, but financial debt and an unrequited love affair led him to abruptly join the army in 1793. He was an unlikely and wholly incompetent soldier, and his family managed to procure his dismissal after only a few months of service.

Upon returning to Cambridge, Coleridge became friends with the poet William Wordsworth, a relationship that would prove to be pivotal in the development of English literature. Together they published Lyrical Ballads in 1798, a book of verse that essentially started the Romantic Movement in England, a movement with which the two poets’ names, along with Lord Byron, Percy Shelley, and John Keats, are eternally and justifiably linked. Although his influence extends well-beyond the realm of poetry—his writings in literary criticism, religious theory, and philosophy are also impressive literary gems—Samuel Coleridge will forever be known as one of the elite poets of the English language, and The Rime of the Ancient Mariner is the superlative example of why such an epithet is richly deserved.

The original version of “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner” first appeared in Lyrical Ballads in a form that employed archaic spellings, such as “Ancyent Marinere.” Coleridge published his final version of the poem in 1817 using contemporary spellings and with marginal glosses from the author added throughout the poem. The tale centers on an old seaman’s adventures on a sailing ship and the supernatural occurrences that follow his apparently arbitrary killing of an albatross. The narrative is filled with energy and excitement, and stylistically it exhibits a medievalism that demonstrates the visionary poet’s affinity with the literary masterpieces that preceded his own generation of bards and scribes. Perhaps most noteworthy is the poem’s melding of indefinable horror with absolute beauty, a magnificent aesthetic achievement that proved to be perfectly suited for the unparalleled style of the artist whose illustrated edition came to be regarded as the definitive production of Coleridge’s visionary poem.

Gustave Doré, born in Strasbourg in 1832, burst onto the national art scene in France at the remarkably tender age of 15 when he boldly presented famed publisher Charles Philipon with an unsolicited set of engravings that inspired the publisher to place the young artist immediately under contract. A commercially successful satire entitled The Labours of Hercules, written and illustrated by Doré, was published in 1847, and he was soon regarded as the finest illustrator in his home country. In 1854 he provided sets of literary engravings for authors François Rabelais and Honoré de Balzac, and his reputation as both a brilliant artist and the consummate master of his craft quickly spread across the continent.

In 1865 Doré published four folios in England, and his international recognition as the greatest—and most prolific—illustrator of fine literature became permanently established with the publication of Doré’s English Bible and the highly successful London: A Pilgrimage. Among the many titles he illustrated during his unprecedented career were Milton’s Paradise Lost, Dante’s Inferno, The Works of Thomas Hood, and a much lauded edition of Cervantes’ Don Quixote. Doré died in 1883, still in the process of applying the finishing touches to an illustrated edition of Edgar Allen Poe’s The Raven.

Gustave Doré’s body of work stands as the superlative example of dramatic illustration and continues to extol a reverence withheld for only the very elite among the world’s artists. Singling out a particular masterpiece from such a prolific illustrator is exceedingly difficult, but the engravings for the Doré edition of The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, first published in 1876, are considered by many art critics to be his greatest work. The drawings hauntingly reflect the images of Coleridge’s poem—the beautiful yet foreboding sea, the frigid eeriness and wonderment of Antarctica, the frightening and monstrous ocean creatures, and the chilling sight of human corpses strewn about the ship’s deck vividly complement the visionary poet’s tale.

This Easton Press edition of Samuel Coleridge’s The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, featuring 40 full-page illustrations by Gustave Doré, is handsomely bound in genuine leather ornamented by accents of 22kt gold. The archival quality paper especially milled for this edition allows the fine-line details of Doré’s classic engravings, including 40 full-page plates, to be exhibited as the truest possible representation of the artist’s work. The craftsmanship and careful selection of the finest bookmaking materials available ensure that this truly unique volume will endure for generations to come as an indispensable addition to your Easton Press library.