Customer Reviews

Breaking Away: Coleridge in Scotland

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The pictures in this book of Scotland's lakes, fields and mountains are breathtaking. Carol Walker follows Coleridge's 263 mile walking tour from over 200 years ago. Mostly color photos record all the sights along the way, and what sights they are. The text consists of a short but thorough history of the tour, and at the end pages from Coleridge's travel journal and letters written during his journey. There are very useful maps that pinpoint each place Coleridge past along the way. Books like this usually disappoint me because of the paucity of pictures. This book is a work of art with equal laurels earned by the author, the photographer and the book designer. It is one of those books you just love to hold and turn the pages. It is so obvious that everyone concerned with this project took great pride in their work. I have a personal library of 10,000 volumes. This is the single most beautiful book I own.

This is a sequel to Walker's Recollections of a Tour Made in Scotland (1997). It covers what happened to Coleridge after he separated from the Wordsworth's on the third week.

Everything about these two books is a true pleasure and obvious labor of love. Not only is Carol Walker a skilled photographer, literary historian and writer, but a hiker and thorough researcher. The books are of real and lasting scholarly merit, they are very generous in what is included.

Most of the book is photos but the first 25 pages is a literary history of Coleridge and Wordsworth, and their relationship and falling out, and how that played into their trip to Scotland. It is entirely human and understandable and gets to the core of what is friendship.