Private Lives of the Ancient Mariner

Molly Lefebure (1919-2013) was a wartime journalist, novelist, children's author, writer on the topography of Cumbria, biographer, and independent scholar and lecturer. She is the author of two other works on the Coleridge family and a volume on the world of Thomas Hardy.Lefebure was a secretary to Professor Keith Simpson (1907-1985), the renowned Home Office Pathologist and head of the Department of Forensic Medicine at Guy's Hospital, with whom she worked during the Second World War. While surrounded by London's crime, grime and gruesome deaths she wrote a memoire, published as 'Evidence for the Crown' (1955), which formed the basis for the successful television drama, 'Murder on the Home Front' (ITV, 2013). Having been fascinated by her work in the mortuaries, Lefebure continued at Guy's Hospital and studied drug addiction for six years, which led her to write her first biography of Coleridge - 'Samuel Taylor Coleridge: A Bondage of Opium' which was published in 1974.'Private Lives of the Ancient Mariner' is the distillation of the lifetime's thought of one who many regard as having been one of the foremost Coleridgean scholars in the world.

• Prologue - The Children of Genius Lose Their Fountain of LightI Funeral at Highgate II A time to lament III The chilled heart Part One - ResurrectionIV Beware, Beware V Offensive disclosures VI Better not look this way First Landing Place - From Under the Tablecloth Part Two - SamVII Little Sam VIII The Torrents of Spring IX Jesus man, including In pursuit of Tippoo Sahib, Francis Coleridge X Jesus man continued XI The pantisocrats XII A chilled heart and a democratic marriage Part Three - Taper in a Cottage WindowXIII Sermons and sedition and a father's kissXIV A seraph in clouts XV The cradle Second Landing Place - Crossroads Part Four - A Mystic Peregrination XVI A mystic peregrination - (I): Father as alchemical philosopherXVII A mystic peregrination - (II): Beyond the grasp of reason XVIII A mystic peregrination - (III) Father as mariner: The way ahead Part Five - Trailing Clouds of GloryXIX In which Papa goes to Germany and Berkeley goes to HeavenXX The Vale of ElysiumXXI A Faery Voyager and a fine representative baby XXII Darkness at noonXXIII Sensibility and sensePart Six - Samuel Taylor Coleridge V Napoleon BonaparteXXIV In pursuit of Tipoo Sahib - Samuel Taylor Coleridge XXV Our man in MaltaXXVI Our man in Malta (Contd)XXVII ConfrontationsPart Seven - ConfrontationsXXVIII And further confrontationsXXIX Ejuxria (Pg 306 - 316) XXX News from the Aunt Hill concluding with some intimationsXXXI A case of unatural cruelty XXXII Further news from the Aunt Hill Part Eight - Locked Out ChildrenXXXIII A month at Brighton! Portrait of an excluded daughterXXXIV A sunny stroll in Ambleside - Portrait of locked out sons Part Nine - Shipwreck of the Faery VoyagerXXXV Shipwreck of the Faery Voyager

There are few biographers who can claim such a long, intense engagement with their subjects as Lefebure. If she sometimes writes as though convinced she has cleared up all the complex mysteries of Coleridge's character [...] perhaps it's because she lived with him, metaphorically speaking, longer than his children, his wife, or any of his other biographers ever did.