Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772–1834)

Abstract

Wordsworth’s awareness of Coleridge’s literary ability probably antedated 1 September 1795, when, so the story goes, the two men met at 7 Great George Street, Bristol, the home of John Pinney, who had made his fortune in the West Indies as a merchant trading in sugar. By that year Coleridge was an author with a growing reputation. Wordsworth, a self-proclaimed poet, had not published much in the way of significant work up to that point. (The date and place have been challenged by some biographers.)