Recollections of the Lake Poets Recollections of the Lake Poets Recollections of the Lake Poets is a collection of biographical essays written by the English author Thomas De Quincey. In these essays, originally published in "Tait's Edinburgh Magazine" between 1834 and 1840, De Quincey provided some of the earliest, best informed, and most candid accounts of the Lake Poets, William Wordsworth, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, and Robert Southey, and others in their circle. Together, the essays "form one of the most entertaining of Lakeland books." De Quincey wrote from direct personal familiarity, having known all three men during the first two decades of the nineteenth century.
To Southey To Southey "To Southey" or "To Robert Southey" was written by Samuel Taylor Coleridge and published in the 14 January 1795 "Morning Chronicle" as part of his "Sonnets on Eminent Characters" series. Robert Southey became a close friend of Coleridge during the summer of 1794 and the two originally formed a plan to start an ideal community together. Although the plan fell apart, Coleridge dedicated the poem to his friend and emphasized Southey's poetic abilities. Following the poem, Coleridge further drifted from Southey and the poem was not republished. Coleridge first met Southey when Coleridge was about to tour Wales