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Literary Collections Letters

The Letters of Sara Hutchinson

edited by Kathleen Coburn

Publisher
University of Toronto Press
Initial publish date
Dec 2018
Category
Letters, Social History, Women, English, Irish, Scottish, Welsh
  • eBook

    ISBN
    9781442654877
    Publish Date
    Dec 2018
    List Price
    $53.00

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Description

Sarah Hutchinson has never been much more than a name, though a name connected with some of the greatest in English literature. The sister of Mrs. Wordsworth, and a member of the Wordsworth household for thirty years, Coleridge's beloved Asra to whom many of his poems were written, Southey's friend and Lamb's, and a guest of the Arnolds at Rugby, she was a member of an interesting circle. For her intimate relations to Wordsworth and Coleridge it has long been apparent that we should like to know her better. Now her letters to members of her family and to friends demonstrate how worthwhile it is to know her for herself as well.

The letters come from the family and from the Wordsworth collection at Dove Cottage and are here printed (almost in full) for the first time.

They show a lively and amusing woman, kind, forthright to the extent of bluntness, especially when she takes up the cudgels in the cause of what she considers truth or justice or human kindness. Coleridge describes her in one apt and characteristic sentence:

'If Sense, Sensibility, Sweetness of Temper, perfect simplicity and unpretending Nature, joined to shrewdness and entertainingness make a valuable Woman, Sara Hutchinson is so.'

Such qualities certainly make a delightful letter-writer.

About the author

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.

Kathleen Coburn's profile page