The Making of Poetry: Coleridge, the Wordsworths and Their Year of Marvels

By Adam Nicolson

SHORTLISTED FOR THE COSTA BIOGRAPHY AWARD 2019

‘This is a book of wonders’ Sunday Times

‘Spellbinding and intelligent’ Financial Times

‘Extraordinary and engrossing’ Spectator

It was the most extraordinary year. In a book brimming with poetry and nature writing, biography and adventure, Adam Nicolson walks in the footsteps of Coleridge, Wordsworth and his sister Dorothy during the months in the late 1790s they spent together in the Quantock Hills.

Out of it came The Ancient Mariner, ‘Kubla Khan’, Lyrical Ballads and ‘Tintern Abbey’; Coleridge’s unmatched hymns to friendship and fatherhood; Wordsworth’s revolutionary verses and paeans to the unity of soul and cosmos, love and understanding. In short, a poetry that sought to remake the world.

• Language: English
• Publisher: HarperCollins UK
• Release date: May 30, 2019
• ISBN: 9780008126483

Adam Nicolson

Adam Nicolson is the author of many books on history, travel and the environment. He is winner of the Somerset Maugham Award and the British Topography Prize and lives at Sissinghust Castle in Kent.

Reviews for The Making of Poetry

[skirret · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

Disappointing write-by-numbers suspense novel. Forgettable two-dimensional characters, cookie-cutter dialogues and the inevitable hunter-turns-hunted ending.

A generic story that runs along straight rails, the destination visible from miles away.

The blurb lists several major awards won by the author.

Maybe I was unlucky to pick one of her less inspired efforts.

[readinggeek451 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Another in Stewart's loosely connected FBI novels. Agent Portia Cahill has recently returned from overseas, where she was involved in counterterrorism activities until she became too well-known for undercover work. Now back with John Mancini's elite investigation unit, she is assigned to follow up on convicted serial killer Sheldon Woods, in an attempt to get him to reveal where he stashed more of his victims' bodies. She is successful, but the first grave uncovered has not one but two skeletons in it. Soon, new victims are turning up in old graves. Does Woods have an accomplice? A disciple? A copycat? And just who is that second skeleton?Exciting and suspenseful, with some shocking revelations.

[nitestar_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I have read most of Mariah Stewart's books. Forgotten is an out of series book, but was as engrossing as any of her other books.In Forgotten, psychopath Sheldon Woods has kidnapped a number of boys - what adds to the grisly scene is that nobody is exactly sure how many and where there body lies and this situation will set the scene for this extremely dark, exciting and disturbing novel. Stewart manages to create a tension filled storyline - and it is obvious that she has based her Sheldon Woods character on a combination of real life psychos!!!! Woods is a very well created character, spooky and disgusting and he was the central plot for me, because of this character - the novel worked.The interaction between James Cannon, who was the initial attorney who represented Woods, and the FBI Agent, Portia Cahill was well drawn and they worked well together.Stewart always manages to write extremely broody novels. With her apt and vivid descriptions, you could almost feel yourself talking with Woods - practically wanting to beg him to tell you where the bodies are buried and at the same time, you wanted to run away from him AND kill him with your bare hands. This novel is fairly descriptive

[emigre_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Stewart's writing gets better with each book, she doesn't waste words and the foreshadowing is superb.