Constructing Coleridge

the long version

Following Coleridge's death in 1834, his family began the complex process of constructing his reputation. Coleridge was a controversial, even polarizing, figure. Attacked in both Tory and opposition magazine reviews of Biographia Literaria for moral laxity on the one hand and political apostasy on the other, Coleridge spent the rest of his life working to secure his reputation as a Tory sage and moral leader. The family editors inherited this project in difficult circumstances--beset by scandals over plagiarism, opium addiction, perceived idleness, lurid retellings of his disastrous marriage and family life. It seemed that determining Coleridge's reputation was slipping out of their hands. This book reveals the historical development of literary reputation by examining the motives and editorial choices of the first generation of Coleridge family editors. It also tells the story of Sara Coleridge's discovery of her long-absent father by becoming his most perceptive reader and inheritor of his philosophical legacy.