Coleridge, Samuel Taylor.

First edition, presentation copy inscribed by the author to the Italian revolutionary Gioacchino de' Prati ("Dr De Prati | with affectionate | regards of the | Author, | S.T. Coleridge | 1 June 1825"),  8vo (184 x 111mm.), autograph annotations, corrections and revisions in ink to at least 44 pages of the text, 2pp. autograph manuscript signed with initials with 37 lines of notes tipped-in between p.306 and p.307, without the advertisements at the end, nineteenth-century calf gilt, preserved in black morocco pull-off case, speckled edges, a few annotations slightly cropped, some gatherings nearly loose, remains of sealing wax between p.306 and p.307 where manuscript leaf previously attached, binding worn, joints splitting near the head of the spine

5th Earl of Rosebery, armorial bookplate, a gift in 1891 from his cousin, Ferdinand de Rothschild, of Waddesdon Manor

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The recipient, Gioacchino de' Prati (1790–1863), was an Italian revolutionary and patriot, exiled for his views in 1816, when he fled to Switzerland. In 1823 he found political refuge in England, and became acquainted with Coleridge in April 1825. Their first recorded correspondence is in May 1825, when Coleridge writes to him "now be assured, that whatever I could do for a brother, I will do for you... I shall read with great interest the works you have sent me, and as soon as my Aids to Reflection have left the printer's office... I will send you all such of my works as are not out of print" (Collected Letters, vol.5, pp.452-454). Presumably then, at around the same time Coleridge inscribed this copy of Aids to Reflection to de' Prati (1 June of the same year), he may have sent him other copies of his works. De' Prati went on to establish a broad circle of exiled and radical friends. He was imprisoned for debt in 1829, joined the July Revolution in France soon after his release, and latterly took up the practice of medicine, contributing a medical column to the radical Penny Satirist from 1837 to 1840.

Aids to Reflection is a collection of commentaries and aphorisms on selected passages from the seventeenth-century Anglican divine Archbishop Leighton, the two main objects of which were to stress Coleridge's vision of Christianity as a "personal revelation" and to develop further his famous distinction between Reason and Understanding. The annotations in part refer to this famous distinction, as, for example, in the bottom margins of pp.viii-ix: "Reason may be considered, either in relation to intelligence, i.e. as the Speculative or Theoretic Reason = A: or in relation to our moral being, i.e. as the Practical Reason = a... the understanding is taken, either as a mode or facet of thinking, i.e. as Reflection = B or as a mode or principle of acting = b..." The autograph note tipped-in after p.306 is a further elaboration of Coleridge's commentary on St Paul's "views and mode of reasoning – especially, in the Epistle to the Romans and the Galatians", particularly in relation to the distinction between the "criminal deed" and the "wicked Act". It is the latter, not the former, Coleridge claims, which wounds the conscience: "The Act is one with the agent. The self-deceiving sinner, however, would fain confund the guilty Act which is always present in its source, with the Deed which indeed is past..."

This copy is not recorded by Barbara Rosenbaum in her listing of other annotated copies in Index of English Literary Manuscripts, Vol.IV, Arnold-Gissing, compiled by Rosenbaum and Pamela White, 1982 (Cos 847-856, pp. 587-588). This includes copies inscribed to James Gillman (British Library), John Taylor Coleridge (British Library), the Rev. Edward Coleridge (Pierpont Morgan) and Robert Southey (Rosenbach). A further annotated copy, inscribed by Coleridge to his son Derwent, was sold in our rooms on 13 December 2007, lot 45, £11,000.