Samuel Taylor Coleridge

One of the highly praised Lakeland poets, alongside his friend William Wordsworth, Samuel Taylor Coleridge was a founder of the Romantic movement in England. His work - still popular today - includes such classics as The Rime of the Ancient Mariner and Kubla Khan as well as the beautiful early poem Frost at Midnight: 'Or if the secret ministry of frost, Shall hang them up in silent icicles, Quietly shining to the quiet Moon.'

Despite the great beauty of his work, he suffered from bouts of depression and today it is speculated he may well have had bipolar disorder. For both mental and physical ailments he was treated with laudanum which led to a lifelong addition to opium.

Coleridge's influence was widespread - he was a major influence on Ralph Waldo Emerson - indeed, he invented the phrase suspension of disbelief. This collection is a fascinating insight into his life, as well as his work.

Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772-1834) was educated at Christ's Hospital, London and Jesus College, Cambridge. Close collaboration with Wordsworth resulted in a joint production of the volume Lyrical Ballads in 1798, which contained Coleridge's 'The Rime of the Ancient Mariner', signposting the Romantic movement. After wintering in Germany in 1797-8 he settled in the Lake District, where he wrote the 'Letter' that turned into 'Dejection: An Ode' (1802). In later years Coleridge turned increasingly to prose, covering philosophical, political, religious and critical subjects, although new poems continued to appear in most years until his death.

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