This "transmission tree" and chronology, compiled by Chris Koenig-Woodyard, indicates who read the poem before it was published and what they had to say about it. Also see entries in the table of contents to the article for more information.
One of the most interesting aspects of this pre-publication circulation is how many authors recited Coleridge's poem in the years between 1800 and 1816. For example, Koenig-Woodyard notes that Walter Scott read the poem to Lord Byron in June 1815, after which Byron recited it to a group of friends in the year it was published. As Koenig-Woodyard relates,
"He [Byron] recited the Hutchinson transcript, for example, in July 1816
for John Polidori, Percy Shelley, and Mary Godwin. The recitation--as Polidori
records in his diary--is now famous because of the reaction it elicited in
Shelley. During the recitation of Geraldine's disrobing in the Bedroom scene of
Part I, Shelley "ran out of the room... shrieking
and putting his hands to his head." After Shelley calmed down, he
explained that he "thought of a woman... who had eyes instead of nipples,
which taking hold of him, horrified him."(6) Byron's
recitation is also important because it inspires Byron, Polidori and Godwin to
enter into a competition to write ghost stories that, in the end, sees the
production of The Vampyre and the origins of Frankenstein,
or, The Modern Prometheus."
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