Tuesday, January 30, 2007

Shakespeare may not have had a sister, but Coleridge had a daughter

120 unknown poems by Samuel Taylor Coleridge's daughter, Sara, have been discovered at the Harry Ransom Center at the University of Texas. Dr. Peter Swaab, the British academic who found the poems, describes Sara Coleridge as "an important minor poet." "She's an exceptionally gifted writer and deserves a much wider readership," Swaab said. "She needs to be nudged up the list of people we consider to be important in Romantic and Victorian culture."

It is not at all surprising that a Victorian woman would not make her poetry public, especially the deeply personal poetry Sara Coleridge wrote, which include love poems and poems about her breast cancer.

The collection has been published by Carcanet Press.