A 1300-1500 line "Christabel"

Coleridge's comments to Thomas Longman in a letter of 26 March 1801 add to the confusion about the length of "Christabel" in late 1800 and early 1801:

I shall very soon remit you the manuscript of my 'Information collected during a residence of 10 months in North Germany'... In the mean time, I should rather wish to send forth a Poem first, which I have reason to believe, from the concurring testimony of all the persons to whom I have submitted it, is more likely to be popular than any thing which I have hitherto written--. It is in length about the size of the Farmer's Boy, and I shall annex to it two Discourses, Concerning Metre, & Concerning the Marvellous in Poetry--/ For this poem a friend of mine is now drawing for me under my direction some head- and tail-pieces, representing the particular Scenes & Places, which are mentioned in the course of the Tale, all of which he takes on the spot --and they are from the wildest & most romantic parts of this Country.--I wish to know whether you are disposed to publish this poem in the manner in which the FABLIAUX edited by Mr. Ellis are published, whether you would venture on the expence of having the little Drawings engraved or cut in wood. The title of the poem is CHRISTABEL, a Legend, in Five Books.(1)

Coleridge's "Information" on his trip to Germany was never submitted to Longman. Too, the plan to print "Christabel" with Longman was never realized. But his comments on how he envisions "Christabel" as it stands presently and as it would stand in print are telling. His comments about"Christabel" standing at "about the size of the Farmer's Boy" partly corroborate his October 1800 estimate of the poem's length at 1300-1400 lines. Robert Bloomfield's The Farmer's Boy; A Rural Poem is 1512 lines long--its four parts, Spring, Summer, Autumn, and Winter are 358, 400, 360, and 394 lines in length, respectively.(2)

All three comments by Coleridge that "Christabel" stood at between 1300 to 1500 lines in 1801 are partly corroborated by an 18 October 1815 letter to Byron: "The Christabel, which you have mentioned in so obliging a manner, was composed by me in the [year] 1797--I should say, that the plan of the whole poem was formed and the first Book and half the second were finished--and it was not till after my return from Germany in the year 1800 that I resumed it--and finished the second and part of the Third Book."(3)

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Notes

1. Collected Letters of Samuel Taylor Coleridge, E.L. Griggs, 6 vols. (Oxford: Clarendon, 1956- 71), 4: 601. (back)
2. See Bloomfield's The Farmer's Boy; A Rural Poem. London: Vernor and Hood, Poultry, 1800. The length of the poem's sections is taken from Bloomfield's Poetical Works, ed. Birket Foster. (London: George Routledge & Co., 1857). (back)
3. Collected Letter of Samuel Taylor Coleridge 4: 601-02. (back)