The Letter from Goslar: Order of Entry and Transcription

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NOTE: The entry is on the front and back of one sheet, not facing each other.

You can load this PDF version of the transcription

The letter to Coleridge from Goslar provides a strong sense of the cost of paper and postage in the late eighteenth century as Dorothy fills up every possible space on the sheet. This makes it quite difficult to read the letter and to follow the order of the copied entries on the page.

The site provides photographs of both parts of the letter, but only the two sides relating to MS JJ have been transcribed here (after Parrish, with additions).

Contents and Order of Entry

Dorothy clearly enters the long passages of introductory prose and poetry first on the page, copying out the skating scene and the boat-stealing scene and then "Nutting" which goes onto the other sheet. She then fills in the rest of the page around these. In order to distinguish the later entries she writes them in different directions on the page entering lines as well, to distinguish each block of entry. The exact order of entry of these filled-in sections cannot be determined although the last two are clear. In the image below, the left hand side represents the front part of the folded letter.