Derwent Coleridge Derwent Coleridge Derwent Coleridge (1800–1883), third child of Samuel Taylor Coleridge, was a distinguished English scholar and author. Derwent Coleridge was born at Keswick, Cumberland, 14 September 1800 (Derwent Water is not far away). He was sent with his brother Hartley to be educated at a small school near Ambleside. The two brothers were in those days in continual intercourse with Southey and Wordsworth. Derwent was sent to St. John's College, Cambridge, where he formed intimate lifelong friendships with W. M. Praed, Macaulay, John Moultrie, Sidney Walker, Charles Austin, and Bulwer. In the autumn of 1822, he joined them as
Samuel Taylor Coleridge of a "Person from Porlock" – an event that has been embellished upon in such varied contexts as science fiction and Nabokov's "Lolita". During this period, he also produced his much-praised "conversation poems" "This Lime-Tree Bower My Prison", "Frost at Midnight", and "". In 1798, Coleridge and Wordsworth published a joint volume of poetry, "Lyrical Ballads", which proved to be the starting point for the English romantic age. Wordsworth may have contributed more poems, but the real star of the collection was Coleridge's first version of "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner". It was the longest work and drew more