Samuel Taylor Coleridge
21 October: STC born at Ottery St. Mary's, Devonshire.
Father dies.
At Christ's Hospital (school). [See Lamb, "Christ's Hospital Five-and-Thirty years Ago."].
Reads Bowles's Sonnets.
Brother Luke and sister Ann die.
At Cambridge.
In love with Mary Evans; enlists in the 15th Dragoons.
Returns to Cambridge; meets Robert Southey. Engaged to Sara Fricker. Meets Godwin. STC and Southey plan a "Pantisocracy," a radical egalitarian community originally conceived to live in eastern Pennsylvania, then Wales. Since the two men couldn't agree on a spot, the project was abandoned.
Meets Wordsworth. Marries Sara Fricker.
Poems on Various Subjects published. Son Hartley born. Moves family to Nether Stowey. First takes opium.
Preaching at various Unitarian chapels.
With Wordsworth at Nether Stowey. Begins The Rime of the Ancient Mariner.
Lyrical Ballads, with Wordsworth. Wedgewoods give Coleridge £150 annuity. Visits Germany with Wordsworth. Writes "Kubla Khan."
Meets Sara Hutchinson. Tours the Lake District.
Writes political leaders for Morning Post.
Health breaks down; opium again.
"Dejection, an Ode." Daughter Sara born.
Tours Scotland with W. & Dorothy Wordsworth.
In Malta and Sicily. Private secretary to Alexander Ball, High Commissioner at Malta.
Appointed Acting Public Secretary in Malta.
Returns to England; Dorothy Wordsworth "shocked" at his condition.
Separates from wife.
The Friend, a journal.
Quarrel with Wordsworth. Heavily addicted to opium.
Josiah Wedgewood withdraws half STC's annuity.
Lectures on Shakespeare. These are where he gained his reputation as a literary critic.
Reconciled to Wordsworth.
Lectures on Belles Lettres.
In the care of Dr. Daniel for opium addiction. Lectures in Bristol. Turns from Unitarianism to Anglicanism.
Financial difficulties.
Settles at Highgate with Dr. James Gilman. Christabel and Kubla Khan.
Biographia Literaria and Lay Sermons.
More Lectures on Shakespeare.
Aids to Reflection. Appointed Associate of the Royal Society of Literature, begins receiving £125 annuity.
"Highgate Thursdays," a series of salons / lectures.
Continental tour with Wordsworth.
Constitution of Church and State.
July 25: Dies
Why love must needs be blind,
But this the best of all I hold,-
His eyes are in his mind . . .
. . . What outward form and feature are
He guesseth but in part;
But what within is good and fair
he seeth with the heart.