Coleridge often made changes to his poems and The Rime of the Ancient Mariner was no exception – he produced at least eighteen different versions over the years.[20](pp 128–130) He regarded revision as an essential part of creating poetry.[20](p 138) The first published version of the poem was in Lyrical Ballads in 1798. The second edition of this anthology in 1800 included a revised text, requested by Coleridge, in which some of the language and many of the archaic spellings were modernised. He also reduced the title to The Ancient Mariner but for later versions the longer title was restored. The 1802 and 1805 editions of Lyrical Ballads had minor textual changes. In 1817 Coleridge's Sibylline Leaves anthology included a new version with an extensive marginal gloss, written by the poet. The last version he produced was in 1834.[21][20](pp 127, 130, 134)
Traditionally literary critics regarded each revision of a text by an author as producing a more authoritative version and Coleridge published somewhat revised versions of the poem in his Poetical Works anthology editions of 1828, 1829, and lastly in 1834—the year of his death. More recently scholars look to the earliest version, even in manuscript, as the most authoritative but for this poem no manuscript is extant. Hence the editors of the edition of Collected Poems published in 1972 used the 1798 version but made their own modernisation of the spelling and they added some passages taken from later editions.[20](pp 128–129, 134)
The 1817 edition, the one most used today and the first to be published under Coleridge's own name rather than anonymously, added a new Latin epigraph but the major change was the addition of the gloss that has a considerable effect on the way the poem reads.[22](p 186)[23][24][20](pp 130, 134) Coleridge's grandson E.H. Coleridge produced a detailed study of the published versions of the poem.[22] Over all, Coleridge's revisions resulted in the poem losing thirty-nine lines and an introductory prose "Argument", and gaining fifty-eight glosses and a Latin epigraph.[20](p 134)
In general the anthologies included printed lists of errata and, in the case of the particularly lengthy list in Sibylline Leaves, the list was included at the beginning of the volume. Such changes were often editorial rather than merely correcting errors.[20](pp 131, 139) Coleridge also made handwritten changes in printed volumes of his work, particularly when he presented them as gifts to friends.[20](pp 134, 139)
