My academic career began under the cloud of expulsion from playschool. The verdict was that I was underperforming. As my father formulated a query – as to what level of attainment was required of kindergarten students – the teacher bustled us out the door with the conclusion that ‘He won’t be fit for school’. Either from faith in my abilities, or horror at the prospect of having me around the house all the time, my parents sent me to school nonetheless. I thank them first, and hope that their persistence was validated; unless a monograph on Coleridge was precisely the outcome the early pedagogue feared.
This book was assisted in part by a Newby Trust Education Grant. Without Michael John Kooy’s invaluable insights over Twinings Green Tea with Orange & Lotus Flower, this would be a different book. Jonathan Bate gave especially good counsel on Shakespeare and Romantic drama. Warwick’s Humanities Research Centre and the CAPITAL Centre funded my conference on The Romantic Voice, at which RSC alumni Judith Phillips and Roger Hyams organised a workshop on Coleridge and Voice. Sorcha Gunne, Michael Hulse, Jacqueline Labbe, Peter Larkin, Emma Mason, Jon Mee and Pablo Mukherjee have all encouraged my research in various ways, while Seamus Perry has proved a sagacious advisor.
At Bristol, Tim Webb has been a steadfast ally in the coffee mornings we have enjoyed since my time on the MA in Romanticism. I am grateful to Andrew Bennett, Stephen Cheeke, Nick Groom, David Punter and Adam Rounce, former tutors at the Centre for Romantic Studies who assisted me with aspects of my work on Coleridge. My MA classmate Ant Howell remains a valuable friend through metaphysical thick and thin. Thanks also to Duncan Kennedy, Neville Morley and Ellen O’Gorman for welcoming me into the Classics department and Bristol’s Trinity Mafia.
In the wider field of Romantic studies I am indebted to Jim Mays on several counts. Richard Gravil and Nicholas Roe have kindly invited me to contribute to major conferences and journals. Hence early versions of Chapters 3 and 6 appeared in The Coleridge Bulletin, and elements of Chapter 4 in Romanticism. David Fairer and Fintan O’Toole helped with queries on Sheridan, Joyce Crick on German drama, and Peter Swaab on Sara Coleridge. The Charles Lamb Society contributed bursaries to help me attend the Cannington Coleridge Conference and the Wordsworth Summer Conference. Among diverse forms of support for my work, The Friends of Coleridge assisted my attendance of the Kilve Study Weekend, under the direction of Headmaster Graham Davidson, the excellent Paul Cheshire and Peter Larkin (again).
I completed work on this book as a postdoctoral fellow at Nanyang Technogical University, which has been an ideal environment for my scholarship. Thanks to Alan Chan, Terence Dawson, K.K. Luke and Neil Murphy for this opportunity. At Ashgate, my editor Ann Donahue helped the publishing process run smoothly, and my anonymous reader offered very useful feedback on the manuscript.