Sara Hutchinson
In 1801, Sara Hutchinson transcribed a copy of "Christabel" from a 1800 holograph manuscript given to her by Coleridge. Her copy closely resembles its source (differing, as Jack Stillinger notes, in "only five very minor details") and was possibly given to Lord Byron in October 1815.(1)
Notes
- There is some debate over whether or not Lord Byron received the Hutchinson transcript. Jack Stillinger correctly argues that if the Hutchinson transcript found its way into Byron's hand (which Stillinger doubts), "there is no physical or textual evidence that it was used by the printer" of the 1816 edition. Indeed, there is no textual proof to support such the claim that the manuscript served as a fair copy. This, however, does not dismiss the possibility that the Hutchinson transcript could have found its way into Byron's hands. Such a journey for the manuscript is not out of character with the circulation of other "Christabel" manuscripts. Copies were continually circulated at the instigation of both Coleridge and various copyists. See Jack Stillinger, Coleridge and Textual Instability (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1994), 81; and Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge, ed. E.H. Coleridge, 2 vols. (Oxford: Clarendon, 1912; Reprint 1975), 1: 214n. (back)