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S. T. Coleridge - Time Line


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1770

--
William Wordsworth born; Beethoven born

1771

--
Walter Scott born

1772

October 21, 1772
STC born, Ottery St. Mary, Devonshire

1773

1774

August 12, 1774
Robert Southey born

1775

--
STC begins attending Dame Key's Reading School, Charles Lamb born, Jane Austen born

1776

July 3-7, 1776
American Declaration of Independence proclaimed, War of Independence starts
August 1776
Amedeo Avogadro (of 6.022 x 10^23 fame) born
August 2, 1776
Formal signing of the Declaration of Independence

1777

1778

--
STC starts attending Henry VIII Free Grammar School in Ottery; William Hazlitt born, Voltaire dies, Linnaeus dies, Rousseau dies; Humphry Davy (the chemist) born

1779

1780

--
Britain declares war against Holland

1781

October 6, 1781
STC's father dies

1782 (aged 10 in October)

July 1782 to 1791
STC at Christ's Hospital, London (charity boarding school, which still exists today) (Charles Lamb was a fellow student)

1783

--
Blake Poetical Sketches; Montgolfiers demonstrate their hot-air balloon in Annonay, France; end of American War of Independence; William Pitt becomes Prime Minister; Washington Irving born

1784

--
Sam Johnson dies; U.S. War of Independence formally ends

1785

--
Thomas De Quincey born

1786

--
First commercially-made ice cream sold in New York

1787

--
Constitutional Convention convenes in Philadelphia; Georg Simon Ohm born

1788

--
STC = ``Grecian'' at Christ's Hosp.; Byron born

1789

--
Blake Songs of Innocence
July 14, 1789
Storming of the Bastille
--
Formation of French National Assembly

1790

--
Burke Reflections on the Revolution in France (large file); William Parry (artic explorer) born

1791

--
Paine Rights of Man, part I (large file, both Parts I and II; Boswell Life of Johnson; Faraday born; Birmingham riots; Samuel F. B. Morse born
September 1791
STC enters Jesus College, Cambridge

1792 (aged 20 in October)

--
Paine Rights of Man, part II; Wollstonecraft Rights of Woman (large file), Godwin Political Justice
August 4, 1792
Percy Bysshe Shelley born
September 22, 1792
French Republic declared

1793

January 21, 1793
Louis XVI executed
February 1, 1793
France declares war on England, Holland
June 1793
Reign of Terror begins
July 13, 1793
Jean Paul Marat assassinated by Charlotte Corday
October 16, 1793
Marie Antionette executed
--
Eli Whitney applies for patent on cotton gin; second partition of Poland
December 2, 1793
STC enlists in 15th Light Dragoons as Silas Tomkyn Comberbache

1794

April 10, 1794
STC discharged, returns to Cambridge
June 1794
STC first meets Southey, plan pantisocracy scheme (essentially, a kibbutz)
July 28, 1794
Robespierre executed
--
STC's first poems in Morning Chronicle; Blake Songs of Experience; Paine Age of Reason
September 1794
STC & Southey publish drama The Fall of Robespierre
December 1794
STC leaves Cambridge without degree, tours Wales, begins Religious Musings

1795

January-November 1795
STC - lectures on politics & history at Bristol
May-June 1795
STC - lectures on religion and slave trade at Bristol
--
third partition of Poland; Thomas Carlyle born; STC perhaps first meets Wordsworth
October 4, 1795
STC marries Sara Fricker, they move to Clevedon, Somerset
October 31, 1795
Keats born
portrait of STC;

1796

--
France threatens to invade England; Jenner performs first smallpox (cowpox-based) vaccination
March 1-May 13, 1796
STC produces The Watchman, a political/philosophical periodical
April 16, 1796
STC Poems on Various Subjects
July 1796
Robert Burns dies
September 19, 1796
Hartley Coleridge born
November 19, 1796
STC's self-portrait
December 31, 1796
STC & family move to Nether Stowey

1797

--
Franz Shubert born; Henry Engelhard Steinway (pianos) born
June 5, 1797
STC first meets William & Dorothy Wordsworth; Dorothy's description of STC to William's future wife Mary Hutchinson
July 1797
Wordsworths & Charles Lamb visit STC, who writes This Lime-Tree Bower My Prison; Poems, Second Edition by STC, Charles Lamb, & Charles Lloyd published
July 14, 1797
Wordsworths move to Alfoxden House, near Nether Stowey
August 1797
Mary Wolstonecroft (Shelley) born
fall
STC might have drafted Kubla Khan; British naval forces defeat Dutch; first parachute jump (from a balloon)
November 13, 1797
STC begins Ancient Mariner
November 1797
STC engaged by Morning Post
December 1797
STC's poetry in Morning Post
--
STC finishes part I of Christabel, writes play Osorio; Burke dies; Napoleon invades Austria & Venice

1798

January 1798
STC's Unitarian sermons at Shrewsbury; receives life annuity of 150 £ from Tom & Josiah Wedgwood; meets Hazlitt
February 1798
STC writes Frost at Midnight
spring 1798
France suppresses Swiss cantons
March, 1798
STC completes Mariner and France: An Ode
April 1798
STC writes Fears in Solitude
May 14, 1798
Berkeley Coleridge born (died February 10, 1799)
--
STC writes Kubla Khan (or 1797), first part of Christabel; Volta and La Place discover electricity; Irish Rebellion; Napoleon in Rome; Malthus Essay on the Principles of Population
July 1798
Napoleon invades Egypt; U.S. Congress passes Sedition Act
August 1-2, 1798
Nelson wins Battle of the Nile
September 18, 1798
STC and WW publish (anonymously) Lyrical Ballads (large file; includes Mariner), STC publishes Fears in Solitude
September 19, 1798 to July 1799
STC in Germany to study language & philosophy (William & Dorothy Wordsworth in Germany only till the spring thaw)

1799

February 12, 1799
STC to University of Göttingen
April 1799
news reaches STC of son Berkeley's death
July 1799
STC returns to England
October 1799
STC experiments with nitrous oxide in Bristol with Humphry Davy
October-November 1799
STC in Lake District
October 26, 1799
STC first meets Sara Hutchinson (``Asra'')
November 9, 1799
Napoleon First Consul under new constitution
November 27, 1799-April 1800
STC begins writing political essays & reporting for Morning Post, London
--
Royal Institution founded
December 1799
Wordsworths move to Dove Cottage, Grasmere

1800

January 6-April 1800
STC as Post reporter and leader-writer
Spring 1800
STC translating Schiller's Wallenstein, at Lamb's
April 2, 1800
Battle of Copenhagen
July 24, 1800
STC & family move to Greta Hall, Keswick
--
Battle of Marengo; Napoleon signs Concordat with Pope; Treaty of Lundville; Austria makes peace; France gains in Germany; Cowper dies; Charles Goodyear (rubber) born
September 5, 1800
English take Malta
September 14, 1800
Derwent Coleridge born
Autumn 1800
STC finishes Part II of Christabel
winter of 1800-1801
STC's prolonged illnesses - rheumatic fever, etc. - although he had taken opium before (as did practically everybody - it was the only effective pain-killer then), this may be when he became addicted

1801

January 1801
STC's & WW's Lyrical Ballads, 1800 edition, with WW's Preface
September 1801-August 1803
STC an occasional contributer to Morning Post

1802 (aged 30 in October)

January 1802
STC attends Davy's lectures at Royal Institution
March-November
STC in Lake District
March 25, 1802
Peace of Amiens
April 4, 1802
STC writes first (long) version of Dejection
May 8, 1802
Napoleon becomes life Consul
June 1802
STC publishes Poems
September-October 1802
STC writing for Morning Post
October 4, 1802
STC publishes Dejection, William Wordsworth marries Mary Hutchinson
October 1802
French army enters Switzerland; Edinburgh Review founded
November 1802
STC - tours Wales with Tom & Sally Wedgwood
--
Southey family moves to Greta Hall (Sara Coleridge and Edith Southey were sisters); William Wordsworth's description of STC; Dumas (père) born, Hugo born; Napoleon President of Italy
December 23, 1802
Sara Coleridge (daughter) born

1803

April 30, 1803
U.S. buys Louisiana from France
May 18, 1803
England declares war against France
August 15-29, 1803
STC tours Scotland with William & Dorothy Wordsworth
August 30-September 15, 1803
STC continues tour alone, writes an epitaph (for himself)
--
STC writes Pains of Sleep, Ralph Waldo Emerson born; Irish Rebellion; Christian Doppler (of Doppler effect fame) born; Berlioz born

1804

January 1804
STC ill in Grasmere, then London
February 12, 1804
Kant dies
March 1804
Napoleonic Code adopted
April 9, 1804
STC leaves for Malta and Mediterranean in attempt to regain health and kick opium
May 18, 1804
Napoleon becomes Emperor
July 1804
STC = undersecretary to British High Commissioner of Malta
August-September 1804
STC in Sicily, climbs Mt. Etna twice
--
STC becomes secretary to Alexander Ball, British High Commissioner of Malta; Blake Jerusalem; First self-propelled locomotive demonstrated
December 12, 1804
Spain declares war on Britain

1805

January 18, 1805
STC appointed Acting Public Secretary in Malta; receives news of John Wordsworth's death on Abergavenny
May 26, 1805
Napoleon becomes King of Italy
--
Tom Wedgwood dies, Schiller dies
September 21, 1805
STC leaves Malta for Syracuse, Naples, Rome, Florence, Pisa, Leghorn
October 21, 1805
Battle of Trafalgar, Nelson's victory & death
December 1805
STC in Naples

1806

January 18-May 1806
STC in Rome, travels to Florence & Pisa
April 1806
British blockade of French Empire begins
June 23, 1806
STC sails from Leghorn
--
end of Pitt's Ministry; dissolution of Holy [sic] Roman [sic] Empire [sic]; Elizabeth Barrett Browning born; Lewis and Clark reach the Pacific coast
August 17, 1806
STC returns to England, in worse shape than when he left
November 1806
STC back in Keswick
December 1806-April 1807
STC lives at Coleorton with Wordsworths (Dorothy, William, Mary, and her sister Sara Hutchinson)

1807

January 1807
STC hears Wordsworth read Prelude, writes Lines to William Wordsworth
February
Napoleon attacks Russia
March 25, 1807
abolition of slave trade
--
Charles & Mary Lamb Tales from Shakespeare; Byron Hours of Idleness
August 1807
STC meets De Quincey in Bristol; first voyage of first practical steamboat, the Cleremont, on Hudson River
November 1807
STC in London

1808

January 13-June 1808
STC lives in Courier building, the Strand
January 1808
STC's first lecture series on poetry and principles of taste, Royal Institution
--
STC's illness, occasional contributor to the Courier (till 1817); Charles Lamb Specimens of English Dramatic Poets; Goethe Fauste, part I (large file; contains both parts); Dalton publishes atomic theory
September 1808 (till May 1810)
STC lives with Wordsworths at Allen Bank, Grasmere
December 1808
Napoleon invades Spain

1809

February 1809
Quarterly Review founded
March 9, 1809
Byron English Bards and Scotch Reviewers
May 1809
Napoleon captures Vienna, imprisons the Pope
May-October 1809
STC at Greta Hall
June 1, 1809 - March 15, 1810
STC produces The Friend, political/philosophical periodical
August, 1809
Tennyson born
October 20, 1809
Alexander Ball dies in Malta

1810

March 1810
STC abandoned by Asra
March 15, 1810
Last issue of STC's The Friend
July 1810
Napoleon annexes Holland
--
Wordsworth Guide to the Lakes; Mme. de Staël De l'Allemagne; Scott Lady of the Lake; George III recognized to be insane - Regency begins; Chopin born; Robert Schumann born
October 16-18, 1810
STC moves to London
October 24, 1810
Montague causes breach between STC and Wordsworths

1811

February 5, 1811
Prince of Wales becomes Regent
April 20, 1811
STC's table talk first written down by John Taylor Coleridge
April-September 1811
STC writes for Courier
July 1811
William Makepeace Thackeray born
--
Jane Austen Sense and Sensibility; first steam-powered ferry begins operation, Robert von Bunsen born
November 1811
Luddite uprisings begin
November 18, 1811-January 27, 1812
STC lectures on Shakespeare and Milton at Scot's Corporation Hall, London Philosophical Society

1812 (aged 40 in October)

February-March 1812
Last time STC in Lake District; Charles Dickens born
April 1812
STC begins living with the Morgans
May-August 1812
STC lectures on drama, Willis's Rooms; Charles Lamb and H. Crabb Robinson patch friendship with Wordsworth
June 1812
STC reissues the (slightly revised) Friend
June 18, 1812
U.S. declares War against Britain
June 22, 1812
Napoleon enters Russia
--
Byron Childe Harold, Cantos I & II (link is to Canto 3); Robert Browning born; waltz introduced from Europe into England
October-November 1812
STC lectures on Shakespeare and education in Bristol, on Milton and poetry in Clifton; Wedgwood annuity reduced to 75 £
October-December 1812
Napoleon's retreat from Moscow
November 3, 1812-January 26, 1813
STC's Belles Lettres & Shakespeare lectures, Surrey Institution

1813

January 23-February 1813
successful run of STC's play Remorse (formerly called Osorio) at Drury Lane in London
--
Austen Pride and Prejudice; Shelley Queen Mab; Southey Life of Nelson; Verdi born
June-Autumn 1813
series of victories of Wellington et al. over Napoleon
September 2, 1813
STC meets Mme de Staël
September 1813
Robert Southey becomes Poet Laureate
October 1813-April 1814
STC lectures on Milton, Cervantes, Taste, Shakespeare, education, French Revolution, Napoleon at Bristol

1814

April 6, 1814
Napoleon abdicates
May 30, 1814
Napoleon exiled to Elba
--
STC under care of Dr. Daniel for opium addiction & suicidal depression; Wordsworth Excursion; Scott Waverly; Cary's translation of Dante completed; Austen Mansfield Park; British burn the White House (wasn't painted white until after that, tho'), end of War of 1812; Louis XVIII King of France
August 1, 1814
STC's Remorse performed in Bristol
August-September 1814
STC's essays on criticism published in Bristol
September 20-December 10, 1814
STC publishes essays in Courier
December 24, 1814
peace signed between Britain and United States

1815

February
Napoleon escapes from Elba, returns to Paris March 20
March 1815
STC moves with Morgans to Calne, Wiltshire
June 1815
STC's Remorse performed in Calne
June 18, 1815
Napoleon meets his Waterloo
June 22, 1815
Napoleon abdicates again, restoration of Louis XVIII
--
Wordsworth Poems, The White Doe of Rylstone, Excursion; Scott Waverly
July-September 1815
STC writes Biographia Literaria
August-September 1815
Printing of STC's Belles Lettres, Sibylline Leaves, and Biographia Literaria begins
October 1815
Napoleon sails from Plymouth for St. Helena; Sir Humphry Davy patents the miners' safety lamp

1816

February 1816
STC receives grants from Literary Fund and from Byron
March 1816
STC in London, ill
April 16, 1816
STC enters household of Dr. James Gillman of London suburb of Highgate, as patient and housemate
May 25, 1816
STC publishes Christabel (three editions in May-June 1816), Kubla Khan, Pains of Sleep, republishes Mariner
--
Shelley Alastor and Other Poems; Austen Emma; Charlotte Bronte born
November-December 1816
STC writes Theory of Life (published 1848)
December 1816
STC publishes The Statesman's Manual

1817

March or April 1817
STC publishes second Lay Sermon
April 14, 1817
STC's Remorse plays again
July 1817
STC publishes Biographia Literaria, Sibylline Leaves (collection of his poetry); Henry David Thoreau born
July 18, 1817
Jane Austen dies
--
STC translates Hurwitz's Hebrew Dirge; Keats Poems; Elgin Marbles shown in British Museum
November 1817
STC publishes Zapolya: A Christmas Tale

1818

January 1818
STC's ``Treatise on Method'' published in Encyclopædia Metropolitana
January 27-March 29, 1818
STC lectures on principles of judgement, culture & European literature, poetry, drama
July 1818
Emily Bronte born
--
Keats Endymion; Austen Northanger Abbey, Persuasion; Hazlitt Lectures on the English Poets; Mary W. Shelley Frankenstein; Lamb Collected Works; bankruptcy of STC's published, Rest Fenner
November 1818
SCT revises & publishes The Friend in book form
December 1818 to March 1819
STC lectures on history of philosophy, Shakespeare, Milton, Dante, Spenser, Cervantes

1819

April 11, 1819
STC meets Keats
June 20, 1819
First steam-propelled vessel (the Savannah) to cross the Atlantic arrives in Liverpool from Savannah, Georgia
--
Scott Ivanhoe (large file); Byron Don Juan (first cantos; large file, contains all cantos); George Eliot born
1819-1822
STC writes occasional contributions to Blackwood's
August 16, 1819
Peterloo massacre (of unemployed demonstraters in Manchester)

1820

June 29, 1820
George III dies, George IV begins reign
--
Lamb Essays of Elia (series begins); Shelley Prometheus Unbound, etc.; revolution in Spain and Portugal; tomato is proven to be edible; Susan B. Anthony born

1821

February 23, 1821
Keats dies in Rome
--
De Quincey Confessions of an English Opium Eater, Charles Baudelaire born
May 5, 1821
Napoleon dies

1822 (aged 50 in October)

spring 1822
STC's regular Thursday evening monologs begin
July 1822
Shelley dies, Gregor Mendel born
November 1822-February 1823
STC's wife & daughter at Highgate
December 29, 1822
H. N. Coleridge (nephew, son of STC's brother James) starts recording STC's table talk

1823

--
war between France & Spain
September 1823
STC begins Youth and Age

1824

March 1824
STC elected Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, receives annuity
April 19, 1824
Byron dies
June 1824
STC meets Carlyle
--
Charles X becomes King of France; Beethoven's Ninth Symphony presented for first time

1825

May 18, 1825
STC lectures on the Prometheus of Aeschylus, Royal Society of Literature
late May 1825
STC publishes Aids to Reflection
--
Derwent Coleridge ordained; Hazlitt The Spirit of the Age; rail transportation starts with first track in England
December 1825
Beginning of first worldwide financial depression

1826

July 4, 1826
Thomas Jefferson & John Adams die

1827

March 26, 1827
Beethoven dies
May 1827
STC's serious illness
--
Blake dies, Joseph Lister (antiseptics) born

1828

April 22, 1828
STC meets James Fennimore Cooper
June 21-August 7, 1828
STC's tour of Netherlands and Rhine with William & Dora (daughter) Wordsworth
June-July 1828
STC publishes Poetical Works (3 volumes)
--
STC's Work without Hope published; Hazlitt Life of Napoleon

1829

May 1829
STC's Poetical Works, 2nd edition
May 29, 1829
Sir Humphry Davy dies
--
The typewriter is patented; Catholic Emancipation
September 3, 1829
Sara Coleridge (STC's daughter) marries her cousin H. N. Coleridge
September, 1829
Kekule born (benzene ring); Scotland Yard started
December 1829
STC publishes On the Constitution of the Church and State (ending)

1830

April and autumn 1830
The Devil's Walk republished (unauthorized publication attributed to ``Professor Porson'' in April, reclaimed by STC & Southey in the autumn)
June 25, 1830
George IV dies, William IV begins reign; Greece gains independence
--
STC On the Constitution of the Church and State, second edition; Tennyson Poems, Chiefly Lyrical; first long-distance (Manchester-Liverpool) railway begins operation; Louis Philippe becomes King of France (overthrow of Bourbons)
September 18, 1830
Hazlitt dies

1831

--
John Stuart Mill visits STC; Hegel dies; Charles Darwin sets out on voyage on the Beagle
September 23, 1831
STC publishes Aids to Reflection, 2nd edition
September 1831
STC attends British Association meetings

1832 (aged 60 in October)

March 22, 1832
Goethe dies
June 6, 1832
Bentham dies
September 21, 1832
Scott dies

1833

June 24-29, 1833
STC at Cambridge for British Association meetings
August 5, 1833
Ralph Waldo Emerson visits STC
--
Carlyle Sartor Resartus; Lamb Last Essays of Elia; Browning Pauline; Britain abolishes slavery in its colonies

1834

March-August 1834
STC's Poetical Works, 3rd edition, published in 3 volumes
6:30 am, July 25, 1834
STC dies, (eulogies, another, and yet another); autopsy (he wanted to be able to say ``See, I wasn't an hypochondriack!''
August 2, 1834
STC's funeral
December 23, 1834
Malthus dies
December 27, 1834
Charles Lamb dies (eulogy)

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