Product Description

Samuel Taylor Coleridge's greatest work, THE RIME OF THE ANCIENT MARINER, is utterly unique, unlike any other ballad. No narrative poem has rivaled it in combining scenes of terror with scenes of incomparable beauty. Although enormously popular in the nineteenth century, it is seldom read or studied today. This annotated version by Martin Gardner will help to renew our appreciation for and deepen our understanding of Coleridge's neglected masterpiece.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #442958 in Books
• Published on: 2003-09
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 210 pages

Review
"For those who have not read the poem since a university English class, Gardner makes it well worth revisiting." -- Baltimore Sun, September 14, 2003

"The engravings by Gustave Dore are exquisite and worth the price on their own." -- The Bloomsbury Review, November/December 2003

From the Inside Flap
One of the most evocative, famous, and mysterious poems in the English language is undoubtedly Samuel Taylor Coleridge's THE RIME OF THE ANCIENT MARINER. This seaman's story--full of symbols, strange occurrences, moral implications, and moral ambuguity--has fascinated scholars and lovers of verse. This edition is not only the most comprehensive and informative available but also the most elegant ever to appear.

Martin Gardner, well known for his ANNOTATED ALICE, has written an introduction, a brief biography of Coleridge, copious explanatory notes to the text that are designed to deepen the reader's understanding of the ballad, and a chapter summing up the major critical attitudes toward the poem in which he also discusses possible higher levels of meaning. He closes with questions concerning the poem's much-debated moral. Included also is the first published version of the RIME--significantly different from the final version--and a selected bibliography.

The illustrations by Gustave Dore are in his famous style of "romantic realism" and are especially suitable to the tone of the text. This book, like THE ANNOTATED ALICE, should be on everyone's bookshelf.

About the Author
Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772-1834) was a major English lyrical poet of the nineteenth century. His more well-known poems include THE RIME OF THE ANCIENT MARINER, CHRISTABEL, and KUBLA KHAN.

Martin Gardner is the creator of Scientific American's "Mathematical Games" column, a contributing editor to the Skeptical Inquirer, and the author of more than seventy books, including FROM THE WANDERING JEW TO WILLIAM F. BUCKLEY, JR., and SCIENCE: GOOD, BAD AND BOGUS, as well as the novel THE FLIGHT OF PETER FROMM. He also wrote the introduction and notes to THE ANNOTATED ALICE: THE DEFINITIVE EDITION and PHANTASMAGORIA by Lewis Carroll.

Customer Reviews

An excellent book!
This is well worth having, not only because of the fine annotations but also the wonderful illustrations. Some annotations, for me, seem to get in the way of reading the textl; in this volume, the annotation serves as a wonderful supplemental guide to the text. I couldn't be happier with my purchase.

Exhaustive "Rime"
This is a very exhaustive presentation of the Rime. One heads up, though . . . this edition is not uniform in appearance and size with the other books in the "Annotated" series (i.e. The Annotated Alice, the Annotated Huckleberry Finn). It is larger and has a glossy cover.

Rime of The Ancient Mariner
Best rendition of the Mariner ever seen. Art work is exceptional and the annotations are excellent. Annotated version is unique, the Mariner being subject to wide interpertations.