Joseph Cottle - Life

Life

He was the brother of Amos Simon Cottle but did not receive his classical education; he was for two years at the school of Richard Henderson. Henderson advised him to become a bookseller, and Cottle set up in business in 1791. In 1794 he made, through Robert Lovell, the acquaintance of Coleridge and Southey, then in Bristol and preparing for emigration to America. Coleridge had been offered in London six guineas for the copyright of his poems, but Cottle offered thirty, and the same sum to Southey, also proposing to give the latter fifty guineas for his Joan of Arc, and made arrangements for the lectures delivered on behalf of pantisocracy. He facilitated Coleridge's marriage by the promise of a guinea and a half for every hundred lines of poetry he might produce after the completion of the volume already contracted for. This eventually appeared in April 1796. Joan of Arc was published in the same year.

Cottle next undertook the publication and support of Coleridge's periodical, The Watchman. He was shortly afterwards introduced by Coleridge to William Wordsworth, and the acquaintance resulted in the publication of the two poets' Lyrical Ballads in the autumn of 1798. In the following year Cottle retired from business as a bookseller.

His acquaintance with Coleridge was renewed years later. When in 1814 and 1815 Coleridge was at a low ebb by his opium addiction, Cottle addressed to him some well intended rebukes. In his Biographia Literaria, Coleridge alludes to Cottle as ‘a friend from whom I never received any advice that was not wise, or a remonstrance that was not gentle and affectionate.’ Cottle died at Fairfield House, Bristol, 7 June 1853.