Samuel Taylor Coleridge: Selected Poems

"Bloomsbury Poetry Classics" are selections from the work of some of our greatest poets.

The series is aimed at the general reader rather than the specialist and carries no critical or explanatory apparatus.

This can be found elsewhere. In the series the poems introduce themselves, on an uncluttered page and in a format that is both attractive and convenient.

The selections have been made by the distinguished poet, critic and biographer Ian Hamilton.

Samuel Taylor Coleridge was born in 1772. His fame as a critic and philosopher and the drama of his long struggle against drug addiction have tended to overshadow his output as a poet.

He is admired as the author of a handful of haunting anthology pieces, such as "The Ancient Mariner" and "Kubla Khan", - but the bulk of his verse writings is ignored. "An archangel slightly damaged", was Charles Lamb's memorable summing up, implying a sort of brilliant unfulfilment, and this is how we tend to see the poems.

But Coleridge was a most industrious archangel. His collected "Poetical Works", runs to two substantial volumes.

This selection includes all his classic poems but also tries to represent the whole range of his achievement.