The Rime of the Ancient Mariner

First published in 1798, this narrative poem has an old sailor stop a wedding guest to tell how his ship, driven toward polar ice, was led north again by an albatross that he then shot. Wind dies, the crew thirsts, and supernatural figures of Death and Life-in-Death dice for the men. The mariner alone lives, blessed when he blesses the water-snakes, and is condemned to wander repeating the tale. The voyage moves from a harbor wedding to Antarctic ice, the equator, and a home port. It is a ballad of crime, penance, and the sea, not a treatise on navigation.

Top edge. Front cover illustration produced with metallic foil. Decorative endpapers. 16 mounted coloured plates, also bordered, as is the title page. Black grosgrain silk covered solander box.