Richard Holmes was born in London in 1945 and educated at Downside School and Churchill College, Cambridge. In 1974 his Shelley: The Pursuit won the Somerset Maugham Award and was described by Stephen Spender as 'surely the best biography of Shelley ever written'. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, was awarded an OBE in 1992 and the Biographers' Club Lifetime Services to Biography Prize in 2014. He lives in London and Norwich with the novelist Rose Tremain.
Illustrations ix
Maps xi
Preface xiii
1 Child of Nature 1
2 Orphan of the Storm 21
3 Prodigal Son 39
4 Pantisocrat 59
5 Watchman 89
6 Prodigal Father 117
7 Kubla Coleridge 135
8 Mariner 169
9 Der Wanderer 205
10 Journeyman 238
11 Laker 273
12 Lover 297
13 Metaphysical Mountaineer 321
14 Exile 342
Postscript 362
Coleridge Circle 365
Bibliography and References 372
Acknowledgements 389
Index 391
