What do the portraits of a great poet tell us about his life, his image of himself, and the ideas of him held by his friends and his public? This text seeks to answer this question, focusing on Coleridge and considering each portrait and its place in the context of the career of its artist.

Until now, no detailed examination has been made of the twenty-four portraits known to have been painted of Coleridge during his life. Most of these are still extant, and together they constitute a kind of biography, as well as revealing the assumptions, not only of the sitter and the artists, but also of the culture to which they belong. Each in its different way seems to reveal some aspect of Coleridge's personality. This sequence of images - to which various posthumous and imaginary portraits supply an interesting postscript - are the subject of this illustrated study and catalogue by the eminent Coleridgean and Romantic scholar Morton D. Paley. There are reproductions throughout, two of them in colour.

Morton Paley's collection of the visual material, the first attempt on this scale, is admirably thorough and detailed: it immediately establishes itself as standard.