Sara Coleridge (23 December 1802 – 3 May 1852) was an English author and translator. She was the third child and only daughter of the poet

Samuel Taylor Coleridge Samuel Taylor Coleridge ( ; 21 October 177225 July 1834) was an English poet, literary critic, philosopher, and theologian who was a founder of the Romantic Movement in England and a member of the Lake Poets with his friend William Wordsworth ...

and his wife Sara Fricker. Her first works were translations from Latin and medieval French. She then married and had several children for whom she wrote instructive verses. These were published as ''Pretty Lessons in Verse for Good Children'' in 1834 which included popular poems like ''The Months'': "January brings the snow, makes our feet and fingers glow." In 1837, she published her longest original work – ''Phantasmion, A Fairy Tale –'' which also started as a story for her son Herbert.

Early life

Coleridge was born at Greta Hall, Keswick. Here, after 1803, the Coleridges, Robert Southey and his wife (Mrs. Coleridge's sister), and Mrs. Lovell (another sister), widow of Robert Lovell, the Quaker poet, all lived together; but Coleridge was often away from home; and Uncle Southey was a paterfamilias. The Wordsworths at Grasmere were their neighbours. Wordsworth, in his poem, "The Triad", has left us a description, or poetical glorification, as Sara Coleridge calls it, of the three girls: his own daughter Dora, Edith Southey and Sara Coleridge, the last of the three, though eldest born. Greta Hall was Sara Coleridge's home until her marriage; and the little

Lake A lake is often a naturally occurring, relatively large and fixed body of water on or near the Earth's surface. It is localized in a basin or interconnected basins surrounded by dry land. Lakes lie completely on land and are separate from ...

colony seems to have been her only school. Guided by Southey, and with his ample library at her command, she read by herself the chief Greek and Latin classics, and before she was twenty-five had learnt in addition French, German, Italian and Spanish.

Career

In 1822, Sara Coleridge published ''Account of the Abipones'', a translation in three large volumes of Martin Dobrizhoffer, undertaken in connection with Southey's ''Tale of Paraguay'', which had been suggested to him by Dobrizhoffer's volumes; and Southey alludes to his niece, the translator (canto, iii, stanza 16), where he speaks of the pleasure the old missionary would have felt if In less grandiloquent terms, Charles Lamb, writing about the ''Tale of Paraguay'' to Southey in 1825, says, "How she Dobrizhoffered it all out, puzzles my slender Latinity to conjecture." In 1825, her second work appeared, a translation from the medieval French of the ''Loyal Serviteur, The Right Joyous and Pleasant History of the Feats, Jests, and Prowesses of the Chevalier Bayard, the Good Knight without Fear and without Reproach: By the Loyal Servant''. In September 1829, at

Crosthwaite Parish Church Crosthwaite Parish Church is a church at Great Crosthwaite on the outskirts of Keswick, Cumbria, Keswick in Cumbria, England. It is dedicated to St Kentigern and is the Anglican church of the parish of Crosthwaite. Since 1951 it has been a Grad ...

, Keswick, after an engagement of seven years duration, Sara Coleridge was married to her cousin, Henry Nelson Coleridge (1798–1843), younger son of Captain James Coleridge. He was then a chancery

barrister A barrister is a type of lawyer in common law jurisdiction (area), jurisdictions. Barristers mostly specialise in courtroom advocacy and litigation. Their tasks include arguing cases in courts and tribunals, drafting legal pleadings, jurisprud ...

in London. The first eight years of her married life were spent in a little cottage in

Hampstead Hampstead () is an area in London, England, which lies northwest of Charing Cross, located mainly in the London Borough of Camden, with a small part in the London Borough of Barnet. It borders Highgate and Golders Green to the north, Belsiz ...

. There four of her children were born, of whom two survived. In 1834, Mrs Coleridge published her ''Pretty Lessons in Verse for Good Children; with some Lessons in Latin in Easy Rhyme''. These were originally written for the instruction of her own children, and became very popular. In 1837, the Coleridges moved to Chester Place,

Regent's Park Regent's Park (officially The Regent's Park) is one of the Royal Parks of London. It occupies in north-west Inner London, administratively split between the City of Westminster and the London Borough of Camden, Borough of Camden (and historical ...

; and in the same year appeared ''Phantasmion, a Fairy Tale'', Sara Coleridge's longest original work, described by critic Mike Ashley as "the first fairytale novel written in English". The literary historian Dennis Butts describes ''Phantasmion'' as a "remarkable pioneering fantasy" and "an extraordinary monument to her talent".Dennis Butts, "The Beginnings of Victorianism", in ''Children's Literature: An Illustrated History'', ed. Peter Hunt. Oxford University Press, 1995 The songs in ''Phantasmion'' were much admired in their time by

Leigh Hunt James Henry Leigh Hunt (19 October 178428 August 1859), best known as Leigh Hunt, was an English critic, essayist and poet. Hunt co-founded '' The Examiner'', a leading intellectual journal expounding radical principles. He was the centre ...

and other critics. Some, such as "Sylvan Stag" and "One Face Alone", are notably graceful and musical and the whole fairy tale has beauty of story and richness of language. Some scholars of the

fantasy Fantasy is a genre of speculative fiction that involves supernatural or Magic (supernatural), magical elements, often including Fictional universe, imaginary places and Legendary creature, creatures. The genre's roots lie in oral traditions, ...

genre call ''Phantasmion'' a possible influence on George MacDonald.

Later life

In 1843, Henry Coleridge died, leaving to his widow the unfinished task of editing her father's works. To these she added some compositions of her own, among which are the essay "On Rationalism, with a special application to the Doctrine of Baptismal Regeneration" appended to Coleridge's ''Aids to Reflection'', the preface added to ''Essays on his Own Times, by S. T. Coleridge'', and the introduction to ''Biographia Literaria''. In 1850, Coleridge discovered a lump in her breast. Her physician decided not to operate, prescribing cod liver oil and opium. Knowing there was no cure, she waited for the disease to take its course. "I live in constant fear", Coleridge wrote, "like the Ancient Mariner with the Albatross hung about his neck, I have a weight always upon me." Shortly before she died she amused herself by writing a little autobiography for her daughter. This, which reaches only to her ninth year, was completed by her daughter, and published in 1873, together with some of her letters, under the title ''Memoirs and Letters of Sara Coleridge''. The letters show a cultured and highly speculative mind. They contain many apt criticisms of known people and books, and are specially interesting for their allusions to Wordsworth and the Lake Poets. Sara Coleridge died of breast cancer in London on 3 May 1852.

Family

Coleridge suffered a number of miscarriages and only two of her children, Herbert and Edith, survived to adulthood. Two of Coleridge's children died in infancy. Her son, Herbert Coleridge (1830–1861), won a double first class in

classics Classics, also classical studies or Ancient Greek and Roman studies, is the study of classical antiquity. In the Western world, ''classics'' traditionally refers to the study of Ancient Greek literature, Ancient Greek and Roman literature and ...

and mathematics at Oxford in 1852. He was secretary to a committee appointed by the Philological Society to consider the project of a standard English dictionary, a scheme of which the '' New English Dictionary'', published by the

Clarendon Press Oxford University Press (OUP) is the publishing house of the University of Oxford. It is the largest university press in the world. Its first book was printed in Oxford in 1478, with the Press officially granted the legal right to print books ...

, was the ultimate outcome. His personal researches into the subject were contained in his ''Glossarial Index to the Printed English Literature of the Thirteenth Century'' (1859). Her daughter, Edith Coleridge, edited a biography of Sara, ''The Memoir and Letters of Sara Coleridge'' (1873), which helped to preserve her mother's legacy. File:Herbert Coleridge.jpg, Sara's son Herbert Coleridge File:Edith Coleridge.jpg, Sara's daughter Edith Coleridge

References

;Attribution * *

External links