Tag / Hartley Coleridge

Coleridge in Love

Samuel Taylor Coleridge, poet, literary critic and philosopher was born in Ottery St Mary in Devon in 1772. He was a man of huge intellect and many talents. With his energetic enthusiasm, magnetic personality and copious charm, he was attractive to men and women alike.  His was a complex character, given to marvellous sweeping ideas, flights of fancy and projects he started and often failed to finish. Nowadays we might  consider him to be bi-polar. He was unreliable, unable to keep to deadlines and always ready with an excuse. It is well-known he was also an addictive...

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The Laudanum Lover

I sit on a high shelf above the mantelpiece in Coleridge Cottage, far from the reach of small children. Yet I have been given to them when they suffer from colic. I’m the panacea of all ills, the great analgesic of my days, used to treat anything from female menstrual cramps to diarrhoea and toothache. I am laudanum, an innocuous-looking  pale yellow liquid in a small glass bottle. Bitter to the taste, I’m 10% opium diluted with 90% alcohol and I don’t even need to be prescribed by a doctor....

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