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.

Kathleen Coburn (1905-1991) was a professor emeritus of English at the University of Toronto, General Editor of the Collected Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge, and editor of the Notebooks. She is the author of numerous books, including In Pursuit of Coleridge and Experience into Thought: Perspectives in the Coleridge Notebooks.

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