Coleridge: Early Visions: v. 1 - Softcover

Holmes, Richard

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0140124403 ISBN 13: 9780140124408

Publisher: Penguin, 1990

Synopsis

This biography considers Coleridge as a man apart from his writings. Holmes' objective is to give an impression of what the poet was like in person and as a conversationalist. Holmes reveals him to be disorganized, slothful, neurotically anxious and overly dependent on others. The book won the 1989 Whitbread Book of the Year Award. The author has also written "Shelley: The Persuit", which won the Somerset Maugham Award and a novel "Footsteps".

About this title

Review

‘Dazzling... Holmes has not merely reinterpreted Coleridge; he has re-created 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 Sheldon, Daily Telegraph

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

From the Publisher

some excerpts from the British reviews:
‘Coleridge lives and talks and loves... in these pages as never before.’ MICHAEL FOOT, Independent

‘A deeply moving life of a troubled genius. 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

‘If Coleridge does not leap out of these pages – brilliant, animated, endlessly provoking – and invade your imagination (as he has done mine), then I have failed to do him justice’ Richard Holmes has pursued his subject from the archives of the British Museum to the potholes of Devon and the peaks of the Hartz Mountains. This first (Whitbread prize-winning) volume of his biography transforms our view of the poet of ‘Kubla Khan’, best friend to Wordsworth, forever. Holmes brings back to life not only Coleridge’s poetry and his encyclopaedic thought, but also all his creative energy and physical presence, the very sound of his voice, his fantastic mixture of stormy ebullience and anxious self-doubt. The Romantic writer who emerges is an unforgettably vivid and unexpected figure. Coleridge: Early Visions offers a true portrait of unfolding genius, one that will echo in your mind, long after closing the book.

‘As an act of biographical re-creation, with the ghost of Coleridge hovering over the pages it seems to me nothing short of a masterpiece.’ IAN THOMPSON, Listener

‘Beautifully written and sympathetic... Holmes’ book adds to our sense of Coleridge’s greatnes, is informed by love and humour as well as research; and rises to a climax of narrative writing in the last chapters, in which you feel he has reached into the soul of his subject as every biographer hopes to, but few actually do.’ CLAIRE TOMALIN, Observer

‘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

‘The first volume makes one impatient for the second. Holmes writes with wry empathy and sure scholarship of his wayward hero.’ GEORGE STEINER, Sunday Times, Books of the Year

Edition details

• Publisher: Penguin
• Publication date: 1990
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0140124403
• ISBN 13: 9780140124408
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 432