3 Review(s)

Published in 1847 by Joseph Cottle (1770-1853), this work recounts his relationship with Coleridge and Southey, whom he first met in 1794 as a successful bookseller in Bristol. Cottle went on to finance a number of the Romantic poets' publications, including Wordsworth and Coleridge's Lyrical Ballads (1798), which is seen as marking the start of Romanticism. A reworking of Cottle's controversial Early Recollections (1837), Reminiscences was criticised upon publication for being exaggerated and misleading, coloured by the breakdown of the author's friendship with the poets, as well as revealing information about disputes, moneylending and Coleridge's opium addiction. In spite of its shortcomings, the work gives a uniquely valuable insight into the lives and characters of the Romantic poets by a member of their inner circle. Cottle's memoir has much to reveal about the poets' private lives and artistic influences during a key moment in the Romantic period.