The Rime of the Ancient Mariner and Other Poems

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‘Instead of the cross, the Albatross
About my neck was hung’

When an albatross leads a stricken ship out of treacherous ice, a hapless mariner shoots the bird, arousing the wrath of spirits who pursue the ship. Haunted by Death, the crew begin to perish one by one, until only the cursed mariner remains to confront his guilt. As penance for his actions he is condemned to wander the earth, telling his tale to those he meets as a warning.

The Rime of the Ancient Mariner is Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s longest major poem and marks the beginning of the romantic movement in British literature. This edition also includes many of Coleridge’s other works, including Kubla Khan, Christabel and a selection of the ‘conversation’ poems.

Reviews

‘The greatest sea poem in the language’ Jonathan Raban

‘The Poem contains many delicate touches of passion…a great number of the stanzas present beautiful images, and are expressed with unusual felicity of language’ William Wordsworth

‘Astonishingly, the poem's spell doesn't seem to weaken over the years…The scenery remains thrillingly hellish, while laced with photographically realistic meteorological effects, and the narrative drive is irresistible’ Guardian

About the author

Samuel Taylor Coleridge, born in Devon in 1772, was an English poet, literary critic and philosopher. A close friend of William Wordsworth, Coleridge was also a member of the Lake Poets, and a founder of the English Romantic Movement. The Rime of the Ancient Mariner is among his best-known works.