Holmes writes beautifully and with enormous sympathy for a man who made a fantastic first impression on everyone he met through his brilliance, his lightning way with words and the effulgence of his personality, but whose torments led him to alienate his closest companions and friends; a man who despite being a gifted poet was personally happier in 'normal' jobs-- as a soldier, a journalist, a government official-- than he ever was as an 'artist'. At the end of this first volume Coleridge is near death in his early thirties, has written almost all of his major poetry, although not the journalism and criticism of his later life which in some ways made a greater mark on the literary world, and Holmes thoughtfully speculates in an afterword, as to subsequent generations' view had he died young like his near-contemporaries Keats and Shelley. (Kind of like the contrast between how we view Dean and Brando...) This (along with its companion volume) is a beautifully written biography that will be given to many of my friends this Christmas.