It was a very interesting book that made me learned something new and kept me entertaining.
It's compelling, well researched, and made me travel in time.
It's the first book I read by this author and won't surely be the last.
Recommended.
Many thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for this ARC, all opinions are mine

What I liked best about this excellent read is the author’s intelligence – it shines in every paragraph – and his remarkable range: from observing the privileged elite in 19th century Cambridge through the eyes of a poor scholar to feeling the heat and dust of the opium fields in Sicily, he takes us on an entirely credible journey, based on research that is extensive but worn lightly.

You need only have the merest acquaintance with the poetry of Samuel Taylor Coleridge and his milieu to enjoy seeing the impact of his fantastical poems on his contemporary audience. He comes across as his own worst enemy, able to start a fight in an empty room, a complex mix of lofty idealism and sensuous passions. His friends, his closest family, his rivals (all three embodied in the person of fellow Romantic Robert Southey) are vividly drawn and have a life of their own, aside from shining a light on the different facets of Coleridge’s mercurial nature.

All this, and a quest as a young man strikes out to find his true identity and a love story that overcomes class boundaries and prejudice!

I understand the author has a large catalogue of children’s books. I shall look forward to reading his next adult novel.

Highgate, London, 1824. Samuel Taylor Coleridge is a washed-up opium addict, estranged from his friends and from his neglected wife. His grip on reality is starting to slip; his past and present mingle in laudanum-induced dreams.

In a Cambridge college library, Scrivener, a bullied undergraduate, finds a strange annotation in a book of Coleridge’s poems. Intrigued by this mystery marginalia and captivated by Romantic poetry, he resolves to become a poet himself, with Coleridge as his guiding light.

Across the sea, Samuele, a young Sicilian, discovers that his mother once had a liaison with Coleridge. He sets out for England to learn all he can about the man who may be his father.

It isn’t long before Samuele and Scrivener cross paths—but will their journeys take them to the real Samuel Taylor Coleridge?
Gripping ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

My thanks to NetGalley and Fairlight books for a review copy of this one.

The Second Person from Porlock is a novel of Samuel Taylor Coleridge, of his life and relationships, and of his poetry (particularly Kubla Khan, the Rime of the Ancient Mariner and Christabel), and also of two young men who embark on a search for Coleridge, each for a different purpose. Our story follows parallel narratives and timelines.

On the one side we follow Coleridge himself in the 1820s, residing in the home of Doctor and Mrs Gillman who are helping cure him of his opium addiction, or so they think for Coleridge has his means of getting access. Coleridge’s younger son Derwent is ill, in the depths of a fever and on the verge of death, and Coleridge in his own way is helping to keep watch. He has hopes of his older son Hartley, who he believes has the makings of a great poet, but Hartley struggles with his own addictions (alcohol), and shares a difficult relationship with his father. Meanwhile Coleridge is also estranged from his wife Sarah who lives with her sister and brother-in-law Robert Southey, as also does their daughter Sara. He is haunted by dreams of the past and by a mysterious ‘revenant’ who appears and disappears. In Coleridge’s narrative, we also go back in time to the early 1800s a time he spent in Italy as personal secretary to the Governor of Malta, and when he allegedly had an affair with opera singer Cecilia Bertozzi.

Alongside, in the 1820s we follow the stories of two young men in search of Coleridge. In Jesus College, Cambridge, Coleridge’s alma mater, undergraduate George Scrivener is a sizar, allowed free board and lodging in return for work—in his case, assisting in the library. And it is in the library that he comes across a copy of a book with three of Coleridge’s poems (Kubla Khan, Christabel and The Pain of Sleep) and alongside, a clever but mysterious annotation. This starts him of on a ‘search’ for Coleridge, or rather the things that inspired his poetry for the book makes him believe that Coleridge must be his mentor (through his work), and make him as good a poet.

A second young man, Samuele Gamboni in Italy is the son of Cecilia Bertozzi, and comes to believe from the story his mother finally tells him that Coleridge is possibly his father. He sets off on a journey to England, in search of Coleridge the man, a journey in which he meets various people in the poet’s life—Charles Lamb, his friend; William Wordsworth and his sister Dorothy, with whom Coleridge once made great plans; Thomas Poole, another friend; and finally Southey, and Coleridge’s daughter Sara, a remarkable young woman. From these he tries to form a picture of the man who may be his father, with the plan of ultimately confronting Coleridge. In this journey he also crosses paths with and befriends Scrivener.

I should start off by saying that before I read this book, I knew next to nothing about Coleridge. I had read The Rime of the Ancient Mariner (a school text) and something of his involvement and interest in scientific experiments with Humphry Davy in Richard Holmes’ excellent The Age of Wonder. So this book for me, was more about finding out about Coleridge, the person and the poet; while not having known anything about him was no barrier to enjoying the book and the poetry mentioned and discussed, it also meant that I couldn’t assess the picture that the book presented. But that said, I did enjoy the book overall.

The book certainly does not form the most flattering picture of Coleridge; he was a man who essentially dreamt of many things, was passionate about his dreams, but little concerned with practical things or any form of responsibility. Somewhat like Dickens’ Harold Skimpole, he seemed gladly to live off his friends, and while they may have done much for the love of him or for the charm he cast on them, he was also estranged from more than one of them. The same applied to his wife, one he married in pursuit of a dream rather than for love, imposed on, treated rather shabbily and then pretty much abandoned. But then there is his poetry, as admired as the man is disliked.

The book takes us into Coleridge’s poetry, and the inspirations behind many of them; I enjoyed finding out about the real-life inspirations behind the Ancient Mariner, and how Coleridge converted that story into a poem; the gothic and rather frightening aspects of Christabel, also rather forward for its day, and of course, how his opium addiction was behind some of his work, leaving him too, feeling lost and uncertain about some of it. Before reading the book, I didn’t know that Hartley his son, and Sara his daughter were both poets in their own right, and in the book we get a glimpse of some of Sara’s poetry as well. Sara is a rather remarkable person, and I was very glad to be introduced to her.

Besides these forays into Coleridge’s poetry, through Scrivener’s (and really also Coleridge’s) story we also explore the question of what poetry is and where it comes from; a dream or one’s soul, one’s whole being, everything or nothing. In Scrivener’s attempts to write his own poetry, we see some of these questions thrashed out.

I enjoyed meeting the various real-life characters in the book, and getting an idea of who Coleridge really was and his poetry; the various other writers and poets (Wordsworth, Southey, but especially Charles Lamb and Sara Coleridge) we meet in the course of the story. But I think, slightly more than the Coleridge track, I enjoyed the journeys of Scrivener and Samuele, tracing out the Coleridge that concerned each of them; not only did these together with the Coleridge track help us form a better picture of him, I liked seeing how the things they discovered on their searches lead them to choose their paths in life; each takes something from Coleridge and builds on it, but it turns out very different from what one expected.

A very enjoyable read which left me wanting to read more of Coleridge’s (and indeed Sara’s) poetry, and perhaps more about him as well.

4.25 stars.

A very atmospheric historical novel that will be of particular interest to English literature readers. I find it challenging to read about the demons that haunt great men and women, but they are a part of the tapestry that creates poetry and fiction.

The Second Person from Porlock is a perfectly good book, but I was left feeling lukewarm about it. It's a two-timeline, three-story novel. The first timeline follows moments in the life of Samuel Taylor Coleridge. The second timeline follow two young men, younger then Coleridge, but living when Coleridge is alive. One of the two may be Coleridge's illegitimate son, who has traveled from Italy to explore his possible parentage. The other is a sizar at Cambridge's Jesus College, rebelling against his lowly status and, inspired by Coleridge's writing, considering becoming a poet. Each narrative is well-developed. The Coleridge character doesn't come across as fully realized and seems more of a two-dimensional stand in for the idea of Coleridge than the man himself—one of those celebrity cardboard cut-outs people can take a photo with. The two younger men are more complex and more engaging.

Here's the thing of it: The Second Person from Porlock is a good enough book, but it is not a book that has anything new to offer. Poet/addict who treats his family poorly? Not new. Young man trying to understand his geneology? Not new. Young man wanting to become a writer? Not new. New might have been some of the female characters functioning at the novel's periphery: Coleridge's ill-used wife or his daughter who has grown up distanced from him (both were also writers) or any of the women in the Wordsworth household (again, writers) or Coleridge's Italian paramour. But they're peripheral.

If you enjoy the tropes The Second Person from Porlock offers, you'll find it an excellent read. If you find such tropes wearying, you probably won't want to invest the time to read it.

I received a free electronic ARC of this title for review purposes from the publisher via NetGalley; the opinions are my own.

A transporting novel described by the author as “a riff” around the life of Coleridge and centering around his poetic fragment Kubla Kahn and the mysterious person from Porlock, the person whose sudden arrival allegedly caused the poet's loss of inspiration. It’s 1824 and Coleridge, a recluse estranged by friends and family, is often lost in opium-induced visions. His story intersects with the lives of two young men fatally obsessed with finding him, who meet as they embark on their quest through England: George Scrivener, a poor Cambridge undergraduate student and mediocre aspiring poet who, after finding a cryptic scribble in Coleridge’s book library copy, would do anything to grasp the secret of the poet’s visionary writing but is targeted by his more fortunate peers in a dark academia twist; and Samuele Gambino from Sicily, who finds out he may be Coleridge’s illegitimate son (based on rumours regarding Coleridge’s relation with opera singer Cecilia Bertozzi in Siracusa) and sets out to find his father, pushed by the affection his mother still nurtures.

A taut and engaging story, adventurous and suspenseful, brilliantly paced and deftly constructed in a game of correspondences. It makes excellent use of elements from Coleridge’s most imaginative poems (Kubla Kahn, Ancient Mariner and Christabel) which are scrutinised and used as fragments of a detective story aimed at reconstructing Coleridge’s elusive persona. I loved the vivid reconstruction of the various settings, period details and the reality of Sicily. Characters in Coleridge’s literary entourage come alive, too: Coleridge’s wife and daughter, William and Dorothy Wordsworth, the iconoclastic Byron, haughty Robert Southey and amicable Charles Lamb.

It is also a coming of age novel, with the protagonists confronted with failures and choices: Scrivener, for example, is torn between popular fiction and fiction of a higher order, more attention-demanding but deeply affecting. In this respect, behind the veil of Romanticism lurks a very contemporary concern, i.e. the vision of the reader as a consumer and a narrowing down of spaces for literary fiction that challenges boundaries, beliefs and assumptions (a problem recently illustrated by Frank McGurl’s excellent essay The Novel in the Age of Amazon). A true joy to read, and if you are not familiar with Coleridge and the works cited, you will fall in love it.
4.5

Thanks to Netgalley and Fairlight Books for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

An original and inventive riff on events surrounding Coleridge's life, a story of people with a connection to each other and to the famous Romantic poet that plays on what we do know about his life and embroiders the details in areas that we don't. A lovely knowledgeable read around a fascinating subject.

A really interesting concept that doesn’t feel quite realised. Some lovely language that reflects the poetic themes of the novel

A really interesting premise and a really interesting story that I loved every minute of reading. The cover just adds to how interesting this book is