Coleridge's Laws: A Study of Coleridge in Malta

Hough and Davis have produced a very thorough and disquieting account, which challenges our understanding of Coleridge's liberal idealism and contributes a fine study in the field of British colonialism.

Introduction by Michael John Kooy
1. The Battle of Self
2. Coleridge's Malta
3. The Constitutional Position of the Civil Commissioner
4. Coleridge's Proclamations and Public Notices
5. Thematic Analysis of the Proclamations and Public Notices
6. An Assessment of the Proclamations and Public Notices
Appendix 1. Translations of the Proclamations and Public Notices (by Lydia Davis)
Appendix 2. The British Occupation of Malta
References
Index

Barry Hough is an Associate Professor in the Faculty of Law at Southampton Institute. He is the author of numerous articles in the field of Constitutional and Administrative law and Employment law and of the leading monograph Street Trading and Markets and Fairs (Boston, UK, 1994). Barry Hough is also a contributor to four editions of J. Alder, Constitutional and Administrative Law (Basingstoke and New York) and to William Blake Odgers (ed.), High Court Pleading & Practice (London, 1991).

Howard Davis is Reader in Public Law at Bournemouth University. As well as law and literature his other research and teaching interests relate to constitutional law and human rights, in particular the reception of European human rights law through the Human Rights Act 1998. His textbook, Human Rights Law Directions (Oxford, 2009) is now in its second edition.

Michael John Kooy is Associate Professor at the Department of English and Comparative Literary Studies at Warwick University. His main research interests lie in British and European Romanticism, especially Coleridge, and in the relationship between philosophy and literature. Kooy is the author of Coleridge, Schiller and Aesthetic Education (Basingstoke and New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2002) and he is currently completing a book called Coleridge and War, which assesses Coleridge’s wartime activities as a journalist and poet in relation to his political theology.

Lydia Davis took her degree in Latin and Ancient History at Edinburgh University. Her PhD on British Travellers and the Rediscovery of Sicily, 16th-19th Centuries was awarded in 2006. She has lived and studied in Rome and Sicily. She currently works for Hansard at the House of Commons.

 
Coleridge’s Laws: A Study of Coleridge in Malta presents a side to Coleridge that some may find surprising: the propagandist[…]The situation (visionary poet as colonial legislator) suggests material for a farce, but Coleridge knew a great deal about the law from his time at The Morning Post, and his role in Malta was substantial. That means the administration’s frequent failings implicate Coleridge. Such experiences may also help scholars rethink Coleridge’s politics.

The real achievement of Coleridge’s Laws lies in bringing to light important archival materials, which will fuel fresh perspectives on Maltese history and the endless conversation over Coleridge’s career.

The book supplements in fascinating and important ways Donald Sultana's masterful study of Coleridge's time in Malta [Samuel Taylor Coleridge in Malta and Italy, Oxford: Blackwell, 1969]. For the first time, the 21 official announcements which appeared over Coleridge's name in his capacity as Public Secretary are now published in full and translated (by Lydia Davis) from the original Italian. And they are subjected to a meticulous jurisprudential analysis by the authors, with a full commentary based on archival material which they have unearthed in England and Malta. [...] Hough and Davis have produced a very thorough and disquieting account, which challenges our understanding of Coleridge's liberal idealism and contributes a fine study in the field of British colonialism.