HOME View All Genre

Book

Audiobook

GENRES 🌙 Dark

Coleridge - Richard Holmes

By Richard Holmes

Release Date: 2011-04-28

Genre: Biographies & Memoirs

(0 ratings)
Read Download
Winner of the 1989 Whitbread Prize for Book of the Year, this is the first volume of Holmes’s seminal two-part examination of Samuel Taylor Coleridge, one of Britain’s greatest poets.

‘Coleridge: Early Visions’ is the first part of Holmes’s classic biography of Coleridge that forever transformed our view of the poet of ‘Kubla Khan’ and his place in the Romantic Movement. Dismissed by much recent scholarship as an opium addict, plagiarist, political apostate and mystic charlatan, Richard Holmes’s Coleridge leaps out of the page as a brilliant, animated and endlessly provoking figure who invades the imagination.

This is an act of biographical recreation which brings back to life Coleridge’s poetry and encyclopaedic thought, his creative energy and physical presence. He is vivid and unexpected. Holmes draws the reader into the labyrinthine complications of his subject’s personality and literary power, and faces us with profound questions about the nature of creativity, the relations between sexuality and friendship, and the shifting grounds of political and religious belief.

Note that it has not been possible to include the same picture content that appeared in the original print version.

Reviews

‘Dazzling…Holmes has not merely reinterpreted Coleridge; he has recreated him, and his biography has the aura of fiction, the shimmer of an authentic portrait…a biography like few I have ever read.’ James Wood, Guardian

‘A deeply moving life of a troubled genius. From a great mountain of research, Holmes has fashioned a compelling narrative which inspires considerable affection and respect for Coleridge. This stimulating book is one of the most enjoyable biographies I have read.’ Michael Shelden, Daily Telegraph

‘Coleridge lives, and talks and loves…in these pages as never before.’ Michael Foot, Independent

About the author

Richard Holmes is Professor of Biographical Studies at the University of East Anglia, and editor of the Harper Perennial series Classic Biographies launched in 2004. His is a Fellow of the British Academy, has honorary doctorates from UEA and the Tavistock Institute, and was awarded an OBE in 1992.
His first book, 'Shelley: The Pursuit', won the Somerset Maugham Prize in 1974. 'Coleridge: Early Visions' won the 1989 Whitbread Book of the Year, and 'Dr Johnson & Mr Savage' won the James Tait Black Prize. 'Coleridge: Darker Reflections', won the Duff Cooper Prize and the Heinemann Award. He has published two studies of European biography, 'Footsteps: Adventures of a Romantic Biographer' in 1985, and 'Sidetracks: Explorations of a Romantic Biographer' in 2000. His most recent book 'The Romantic Poets and their Circle' was published by the National Portrait Gallery in 2005. He lives in London and Norwich with the novelist Rose Tremain.

Coleridge - Richard Holmes

By Richard Holmes

Release Date: 2011-04-28

Genre: Biographies & Memoirs

(0 ratings)
Read Download
Winner of the 1989 Whitbread Prize for Book of the Year, this is the first volume of Holmes’s seminal two-part examination of Samuel Taylor Coleridge, one of Britain’s greatest poets.

‘Coleridge: Early Visions’ is the first part of Holmes’s classic biography of Coleridge that forever transformed our view of the poet of ‘Kubla Khan’ and his place in the Romantic Movement. Dismissed by much recent scholarship as an opium addict, plagiarist, political apostate and mystic charlatan, Richard Holmes’s Coleridge leaps out of the page as a brilliant, animated and endlessly provoking figure who invades the imagination.

This is an act of biographical recreation which brings back to life Coleridge’s poetry and encyclopaedic thought, his creative energy and physical presence. He is vivid and unexpected. Holmes draws the reader into the labyrinthine complications of his subject’s personality and literary power, and faces us with profound questions about the nature of creativity, the relations between sexuality and friendship, and the shifting grounds of political and religious belief.

Note that it has not been possible to include the same picture content that appeared in the original print version.

Reviews

‘Dazzling…Holmes has not merely reinterpreted Coleridge; he has recreated him, and his biography has the aura of fiction, the shimmer of an authentic portrait…a biography like few I have ever read.’ James Wood, Guardian

‘A deeply moving life of a troubled genius. From a great mountain of research, Holmes has fashioned a compelling narrative which inspires considerable affection and respect for Coleridge. This stimulating book is one of the most enjoyable biographies I have read.’ Michael Shelden, Daily Telegraph

‘Coleridge lives, and talks and loves…in these pages as never before.’ Michael Foot, Independent

About the author

Richard Holmes is Professor of Biographical Studies at the University of East Anglia, and editor of the Harper Perennial series Classic Biographies launched in 2004. His is a Fellow of the British Academy, has honorary doctorates from UEA and the Tavistock Institute, and was awarded an OBE in 1992.
His first book, 'Shelley: The Pursuit', won the Somerset Maugham Prize in 1974. 'Coleridge: Early Visions' won the 1989 Whitbread Book of the Year, and 'Dr Johnson & Mr Savage' won the James Tait Black Prize. 'Coleridge: Darker Reflections', won the Duff Cooper Prize and the Heinemann Award. He has published two studies of European biography, 'Footsteps: Adventures of a Romantic Biographer' in 1985, and 'Sidetracks: Explorations of a Romantic Biographer' in 2000. His most recent book 'The Romantic Poets and their Circle' was published by the National Portrait Gallery in 2005. He lives in London and Norwich with the novelist Rose Tremain.

More by Richard Holmes

The Age of Wonder

Wellington

Falling Upwards

Redcoat

Footsteps

Sahib

Tommy

Rebels and Redcoats

Coleridge

D-Day The Concise History

The Boundless Deep

Shelley: The Pursuit

I am Soldier

This Long Pursuit

Coleridge

Sidetracks

Dr Johnson and Mr Savage

A Short Residence in Sweden & Memoirs of the Author of 'The Rights of Woman'

In The Footsteps of Churchill

Noah

Coleridge: Early Visions, 1772-1804

Sidetracks

A Guide to Battles

Churchill's Bunker

The Road to Derry: A Brief History

D-Day Remembered

Big River Turkey Farm

L'etĂ  della meraviglia

Human Resource Management in the British Armed Forces

Defence Management in Uncertain Times

CHURCHILLCHYA PAULKHUNA

The Transcendence of the World: Phenomenological Studies

MY BIT

Derry Revisited

Huellas

La edad de los prodigios

Related Articles