The Crewe manuscript is the only

manuscript A manuscript (abbreviated MS for singular and MSS for plural) was, traditionally, any document written by hand or typewritten, as opposed to mechanically printed or reproduced in some indirect or automated way. More recently, the term has ...

copy of

Samuel Taylor Coleridge Samuel Taylor Coleridge ( ; 21 October 177225 July 1834) was an English poet, literary critic, philosopher, and theologian who was a founder of the Romantic Movement in England and a member of the Lake Poets with his friend William Wordsworth ...

's poem

Kubla Khan "Kubla Khan: or A Vision in a Dream" () is a poem written by Samuel Taylor Coleridge, completed in 1797 and published in 1816. It is sometimes given the subtitles "A Vision in a Dream" and "A Fragment." According to Coleridge's preface to "Kub ...

. It is a

holograph An autograph or holograph is a manuscript or document written in its author's or composer's hand. The meaning of " autograph" as a document penned entirely by the author of its content (as opposed to a typeset document or one written by a copy ...

manuscript (i.e., written in Coleridge's own hand), from some time between the poem's composition in 1797 and its publication in 1816. It presumed not to be the first draft of the poem, but rather a "fair copy" written out legibly for publication, though it has some minor differences from the final published poem. In 1934, a copy of the poem written by Coleridge himself sometime before its publication in 1816 was discovered in a private library. The so-called Crewe Manuscript was sent by Coleridge to his sister-in-law Mrs. Southey, who later gave it or sold it to a private autograph collector. It was auctioned in 1859 and purchased by another autograph collector for the price of one pound fifteen pence. It passed to the Marquess of Crewe, who donated it in 1962 to the British Museum. It is now on display at the British Library. The Crewe Manuscript has a number of small changes, and three notable differences, from the final version published in 1816. The three biggest differences between the versions are: *Coleridge changed the size and description of the garden, from "twice six miles... compass'd round"Skeat 1963 pp. 80-81 & plates 30-31 in the manuscript to "twice five miles.... girdled round"Coleridge 1816 pp. 55-58 in the publication. *Line 17 changed its description of the chasm, from "From forth this chasm with hideous Turmoil seething" to "And from this chasm, with ceaseless turmoil seething." *Most significantly, the "Abyssynian maid" was changed from singing of "Mount Amara" in the manuscript to "Mount Abora" in the published version. Mount Amara is a real place, notably mentioned in ''

Paradise Lost ''Paradise Lost'' is an Epic poetry, epic poem in blank verse by the English poet John Milton (1608–1674). The poem concerns the Bible, biblical story of the fall of man: the temptation of Adam and Eve by the fallen angel Satan and their ex ...

'' by John Milton, whereas Mount Abora was purely imaginary, evidently chosen simply for the beauty of its sound.

References

{{reflist, refs= {{Cite web , url=https://www.bl.uk/collection-items/manuscript-of-s-t-coleridges-kubla-khan , title=Manuscript of S T Coleridge's 'Kubla Khan' , website=The British Library , access-date=2020-01-26 John Spencer Hill (1983), ''A Coleridge Companion'', London, Macmillan. {{Cite journal , last=KELLIHER , first=HILTON , title=The Kubla Khan Manuscript and ITS First Collector , date=1994 , journal=The British Library Journal , volume=20 , issue=2 , pages=184–198 , jstor=42554389 , issn=0305-5167

External links

The Crewe manuscript
at the

British Library The British Library is the national library of the United Kingdom. Based in London, it is one of the largest libraries in the world, with an estimated collection of between 170 and 200 million items from multiple countries. As a legal deposit li ...

A transcription of the manuscript
19th-century manuscripts Poetry by Samuel Taylor Coleridge