The Sibylline Leaves edition of the poem both incorporated previously noted changes from the 1798, 1800, 1802, and 1805 editions and new ones, exclusive to this edition. These alterations were largely aesthetic, such as the widely-suggested removal of “archaic” medieval language–note the absence of the ‘y’ in “ancyent” and the dropped e from “Marinere,” but the edition also “dropped some sixty lines and added another twenty,” though not necessarily as replacements (Coleridge and Textual Instability 60). In addition to typographical and grammatical fixes, some line drops, and added lines, Coleridge added the hotly debated marginal gloss in 1817. Viewable below are the changes made to the text between the 1798 and 1817 editions, overlaid upon a facsimile edition of the 1798 Lyrical Ballads, with a Few other Poems edition.
For an independent reading of the marginal gloss, click here.
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