Coleridge, Samuel Taylor and Sara

(1772-1852)

   • Samuel, the father, 1772-1834

   Born in Ottery St. Mary, Devonshire, the youngest son of a clergyman and master of the grammar school, Samuel was a bright and imaginative child who had read the Arabian Nights before the age of five. Educated at Christ's Hospital School, London (now situated at Horsham, Sussex), he was a good scholar and before his fifteenth year had translated the eight hymns of Synesius from Greek into English. He went on to Jesus College, Cambridge, but fired by French revolutionary politics, he enlisted in the 15th Light Dragoons under the name of Comberbache. He was bought out by his brother under the "insanity" clause and left Cambridge without graduating, then studied philosophy at Göttingen University. His later life was marred by opium addiction and unsatisfactory friendships with Southey and Wordsworth. At times he was close to suicide. His Lyrical Ballads (1798), written with William Wordsworth, started the English Romantic movement. He is commemorated by a bust in Poets' Corner of Westminster Abbey. Some of his poems: "Anthem for the Children of Christ's Hospital," "Destruction of the Bastille," "Frost at Midnight," "Kubla Khan," "The Dungeon," "The Foster-Mother's Tale," "The Nightingale," "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner."

   • Sara, the daughter, 1802-1852

   Sara grew up mainly in the company of the families of Wordsworth and Southey in the Lake District. Widely read, she was fluent in six languages. A poet in her own right, she was also the editor of her father's works. She married her cousin, Henry Nelson Coleridge, and spent the rest of her life in London. Much information is contained in her Memoir and Letters published by her daughter in 1873. Along with Dora Wordsworth and Edith Southey, she is one of the three maidens celebrated in Wordsworth's Trias (1828). Her two major translations: Latin Account of the Abipones (from Martin Dobrizhoffer in three volumes), 1992, and Memoirs (of the Chevalier Bayard), 1825. Her major poetry publications: Pretty Lessons in Verse for Good Children, 1834. Phantasmion, 1837 (a fairy story with lyrics, set in the Lake country). Some of her other poems: "Blest is the tarn which towering cliffs o'ershade," "Father! No Amaranths E'er Shall Wreathe My Brow," "Sleep, My Babe," "The Child," "The Garden Year," "The Months," "The Mother," "The Storm," "Trees."

   Sources: Dictionary of National Biography. Electronic Edition, 1.1. Oxford University Press, 1997. Encyclopædia Britannica Ultimate Reference Suite DVD, 2006. English Poetry: Author Search. Chadwyck-Healey Ltd., 1995 (http://www.lib.utexas.edu:8080/search/epoetry/author.html). Oldpoetry (www.oldpoetry.com). The Columbia Granger's Index to Poetry. 11th ed. The Columbia Granger's World of Poetry, Columbia University Press, 2005 (http://www.columbiagrangers.org). The Major Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge. H.J. Jackson, ed. Oxford University Press, 2000. The National Portrait Gallery (www.npg.org.uk). The Oxford Book of Regency Verse 1798-1837. H.S. Milford, ed. Oxford University Press, 1928. The Oxford Companion to English Literature. 6th edition. Margaret Drabble, ed. Oxford University Press, 2000. The Random House Book of Poetry for Children. Jack Prelutsky, ed. The Random House Group, 1983. Westminster Abbey Official Guide (no date).