Coleridge : Early Visions

Coleridge : Early Visions

by RichardHolmes (Author)

Synopsis

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, the shifting grounds of political and religious belief.

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More Information

Format: Paperback
Pages: 432
Edition: New edition
Publisher: Flamingo
Published: 04 Oct 1999

ISBN 10: 0006548415
ISBN 13: 9780006548416
Book Overview: 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. * Perennial reissue as part of a major reinvention of Holmes's classic backlist. This is simply one of the best loved biographies of all time. * Holmes's first book, Shelley: The Pursuit, won the Somerset Maugham Prize; this book won the Whitbread Book of the Year Prize; and Dr Johnson & Mr Savage won the James Tait Black Prize.
Prizes: Winner of Whitbread Prize (Biography) 1999 and Whitbread Book Awards: Book of the Year 1999.

Media Reviews

`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 Shelden, Daily Telegraph

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

Author Bio

Richard Holmes is the author of The Age of Wonder, which won the Royal Society Prize for Science Books and the National Book Critics Circle Award and was one of the ten New York Times' Best Books of the Year in 2009. His balloon book, Falling Upwards, was chosen as a Best Book of the Year by seven newspapers in 2013. His other biographies include Shelley: The Pursuit (winner of the 1974 Somerset Maugham Prize), Coleridge: Early Visions (winner of the 1989 Whitbread Book of the Year Award), Coleridge: Darker Reflections (shortlisted for the Samuel Johnson Prize and winner of the Duff Cooper Prize), and Dr. Johnson & Mr. Savage (winner of the 1993 James Tait Black Prize). This Long Pursuit completes the autobiographical trilogy begun in Footsteps (1985) and Sidetracks (2000). Holmes was awarded the OBE in 1992, and was elected an Honorary Fellow of Churchill College, Cambridge, in 2010. He is the 2018 winner of the BIO Award presented by the Biographers International Organization for sustained achievement in biography. He lives in London and Norwich with the novelist Rose Tremain.