Coleridge: Critic of Society. John Colmer. Oxford University Press. 30/-.
in many ways this is a useful book, though more so to the “student” perhaps than to “the general reader”, for both of whom it is apparently intended. Much of Coleridge’s work is out of print or otherwise difficult to obtain and until the re-publication of his writings (now under way) is completed, Mr. Colmer’s work will be helpful for the large amount of quotation from published and unpublished Coleridge material it includes and for his extensive passages of précis. He provides information on dates of publication and the circumstances of writing of all the published books and essays on politics by Coleridge, biographical and other material, as well as some less useful comment on the historical “background” and the “climate of opinion of the age”. Nine political essays from the Morning Post not hitherto reprinted appear in an appendix. As a work of reference and a source of material Coleridge: Critic of Society is excellent.