SOURCE: A Memoir of the Rev. John Keble, M. A., Late Vicar of Hursley, James Parker and Co., 1869, 620 p.

In the following excerpt, Coleridge recounts the early publication history of Keble's The Christian Year.

Keble returned to a home sadly changed by the death of his sister. I do not think that in the course of his life he sustained any loss which he felt more acutely; beyond the privation to himself in the death of a sister so loved, a companion at once so bright and lively, so sensible and good, he could not but be affected by the blow to his father, and even more his invalide and suffering sister, now left alone. Dyson, who visited at Fairford more often than I did, and knew Mary Anne more familiarly, wrote to me at the time, and I transcribe a part of his letter, as in a...