Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772–1834) was an English Romanticism poet and philosopher. His famous works include The Rime of the Ancient Mariner and Kubla Khan.

Oft-mentioned details of his life include his opium addiction (he started taking it for medical reasons, and got hooked); and the tale of the Man From Porlock, who knocked on his door while he was writing Kubla Khan, distracting him and causing him to forget how the rest of it went.

He also wrote several works of literary criticism, and coined the phrase "Willing Suspension of Disbelief".

Interestingly, he was also friends with William Wordsworth and collaborated with him on the first publication of Lyrical Ballads, which was published anonymously.


 * The Rime of the Ancient Mariner


 * Coleridge appears as a supporting character in the fantasy novel The Anubis Gates by Tim Powers. He plays an important role in the climax of the plot, reacting calmly to all the weirdness surrounding him because he assumes it's just a particularly vivid drug-induced hallucination.
 * In Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency by Douglas Adams, both The Rime of the Ancient Mariner and Kubla Khan were messages from aliens, channelled by Coleridge while out of his mind on opium. The Man From Porlock distracted him deliberately to prevent the key part of the message getting written down.
 * "One Morning with Samuel, Dorothy and William" by Avram Davidson is a day in the life of Coleridge, which turns out to be the day of Kubla Khan and the Man From Porlock.
 * Coleridge has a walk-on in "The Thrilling Adventures of Lovelace and Babbage" by Sydney Padua. Ada Lovelace turns out to be The Person From Porlock, and she sets out to wreck Coleridge's concentration as he writes Kubla Khan, due to her hatred of poetry. It Makes Sense in Context.