Paul Foot

A Hooded Eagle Among Blinking Owls

Coleridge: Early Visions

By

Hodder and Stoughton 320pp £16.95 order from our bookshop

I confess I started this book in an uneasy temper. Richard Holmes’s first major work, his 1974 biography of Shelley, had a more profound effect on me than anything I have ever read except Shelley himself, to whom, anyway, I was led by Richard Holmes. Though it merged my revolutionary opinions with Shelley’s majestic poetry, Holmes’s Shelley: The Pursuit was not a dogmatic book. Christopher Booker, whose political opinions have grown steadily more reactionary, also enjoyed it. It was a biography of such devoted and loving care that it was difficult to see how Richard Holmes, who published this book when he was 29 years old, could possibly move forward from it.

Sign Up to our newsletter

Receive free articles, highlights from the archive, news, details of prizes, and much more.

Follow Literary Review on Twitter

  • Last Tweets

    • 'One of the reasons for its longevity is that it has virtually nothing to say about science and technology at all,… ,
    • 'The characters in many of these stories are trapped in the obsessive present tense of their own thoughts; in the m… ,
    • 'Libraries, for much of their existence, have embodied in microcosm many of the characteristics of the totalitarian… ,
    • 'Moss and Cynthia buy several properties through which to launder their ill-gotten gains, take lots of drugs, have… ,
    • 'Never mind the imperial cult. This is the cult of Boris. What happened to Rome?' From the LR archive:… ,
    • Thirty-two years ago this month, we published Muriel Spark's short story, 'A Playhouse Called Remarkable' Read it… ,
    • Time travel, bicycles and white horses populate @WomackPhilip's roundup of children's books by @marcussedgwick,… ,
    Follow Us