National Trust Coleridge Cottage Guidebook

Samuel Taylor Coleridge was a sublimely talented 18th-century poet who wrote some of the best-known works in English literature. Before Coleridge, poetry was structured and generally considered the domain of the elite – Coleridge’s work, by contrast, was alive with supernatural events, exotic visions and lyrical, romantic descriptions of the English landscape.
Coleridge was a lively conversationalist with a wide circle of friends – his wit and charm kept him at the centre of a glittering literary circle. He was also, however, a troubled character with a penchant for the elucidating, disturbing effects of laudanum, and a maddening capacity for ignoring the practical needs of his young family.

This guide explores the story of Coleridge’s richly-imperfect life, and in particular the three fruitful years he spent living with his wife and young sons in a small cottage in Nether Stowey, in rural Somerset. Walks in the ancient Quantock hills – often with his friend and fellow ‘Romantic’ poet William Wordsworth – inspired many of Coleridge’s best-known works, including The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, Frost at Midnight and Kubla Khan.

Featuring beautiful new photography, the text for this guidebook was adapted from Honeydew and Paradise – Samuel Taylor Coleridge in the Quantocks and the birth of English Romantic poetry, by Terence and Eliza Sackett.