Dartmoor: A Descriptive Poem. Extra-iilustrated with 26 original albumen photographs added by Lord Coleridge.

London: Hatchard & Son, 1826. First edition. Tall octavo, untrimmed on two sides (6 1/2 x 10 1/4 inches). With a preface and notes, by W. Burt, esq., secretary of the chamber of commerce, Plymouth; and eight vignettes and four views, illustrative of scenery, drawn and etched by P.H. Rogers. cv, [1], [2, dedication and publisher's note], 204, [4, subscriber's list], [4, publisher's ads] pp. Twelve etched plates by P.H. Rogers and extra-illustrated with twenty-six original albumen photographs of scenes in the area (each 4 x 3 3/4 inches approx.) mounted two to a page on thirteen leaves; twenty-one with the locations identified in ink by a single manuscript hand, probably Coleridge. Nineteenth-century marbled sheep in brown and green, gilt spine compartments and morocco gilt lettering label. marbled endpapers, t.e.g. Armorial bookplate of Bernard, Lord Coleridge (incorporating a view of the interior of the library at the Chanter’s House, Ottery St. Mary). Some mild joint rubbing but a very clean copy; unique in its pictorial appeal.While it bears the bookplate of Bernard, Lord Coleridge. this book was compiled by his father, John Duke Coleridge, 1st Baron Coleridge (1820-1894), and a great-nephew of poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge. He has made various pencil notes in this book, two of them dated 1870. His family home was in Ottery St. Mary, but he had a great affection for Dartmoor and is known to have spent summers at Buckland Court the home of the Bastard family. The photographer has not been positively identified, but was clearly talented, and one possibility is that Lord Coleridge himself took the photographs. They can dated to the 1860s from their style and content, but also from the notes added by 'J.D.C.' (Lord Coleridge), two of which are dated 1870: this date can be taken as a 'no-later-than' date for the photographs. The Harry Ransom Center have a collection of Lord Coleridge's papers - these include a "Note about photographs of Ottery St. Mary published by John Duke Coleridge, handwritten manuscript, 1 page, undated; note by Ernest Hartley Coleridge." The last 26 pages of the prefatory material is taken up with lists of the flora and fauna of the region. Some of the photograph captions are; Hey Tor from the South; Old Quarry at Chudleigh; New Bridge on the Dart; The Dart from Dartmeet Bridge; Hamilton Ridge from Rippon Tor; Okehamption Castle, etc. In a number of the photographs we see a man with a straw hat (perhaps Coleridge himself?).