Overview

Coleridge was the first person to walk the mountains alone, and not because he had to for work, as a miner, quarryman or shepherd, but because he wanted to for pleasure and for adventure. His rapturous encounter with their natural beauty, and its literary consequences changed our view of the world.This beautifully illustrated book contains an account of his walks and explorations in the Lake District based on the jottings in his notebooks and his vast correspondence.

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9781912242054

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Reviews

Wall Street Journal: Books for Walking 2019: Samuel Taylor Coleridge's walks changed our view of landscape and his view of human company. Keir Davidson, the author of O Joy for me! (Wilmington Square/Bitter Lemon, 194 pages, $30), hides behind a light scholarly robe and lets Coleridge's walks take the stage. It is an original and rewarding approach, far from dry. Early chapters remind us that Coleridge's walking career began at a time when the picturesque was in vogue, thanks to writers like William Gilpin. Landscapes had become framed in the traveler's eye, static and distant. Coleridge lamented ladies reading Gilpin passing by the places instead of looking at the places. Far from being just a poor, mad poet, Coleridge was a pioneer who shifted our view of nature from a lens that can be used to reflect on art and culture, to something worth our attention in its own right. Walking for walking's sake, with a love of nature in all its sublime and subtler guises, was born. Sadly for Coleridge, he abandoned many fascinating walking companions on the way to these insights, including William and Dorothy Wordsworth. Solitude didn't help his poetry, but in prose scraps and scribbled maps we are lucky to witness up close how this new view of landscapes emerged.

Author Information

Keir Davidson is a landscape historian and a landscape planner. He has written on Japanese gardens and is the author of `Woburn Abbey: the Park and Gardens’.

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