Authors starting with C

- Samuel Taylor Coleridge (October 21, 1772 - July 25, 1834) -

Ancestry: Ottery St. Mary, Devon, Great Britain

Samuel Taylor Coleridge was an English poet, Romantic, literary critic and philosopher who, with his friend William Wordsworth, was one of the founders of the Romantic Movement in England and one of the Lake Poets. He is probably best known for his poems The Rime of the Ancient Mariner and Kubla Khan, as well as for his major prose work Biographia Literaria. His critical work, especially on Shakespeare, was highly influential, and he helped introduce German idealist philosophy to English-speaking culture. He coined many familiar words and phrases, including the celebrated suspension of disbelief. He was a major influence, via Emerson, on American transcendentalism.

Throughout his adult life, Coleridge suffered from crippling bouts of anxiety and depression (neuralgia); it has been speculated that Coleridge suffered from bipolar disorder, a mental disorder which was unknown during his life. Coleridge chose to treat these episodes with opium, becoming an addict in the process.