In The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, one of the best-known and best-loved poems in the English language, a grizzled old sailor stops a man on his way to a wedding and tells a terrifying story. He speaks of how he doomed the crew of his ship by shooting dead an albatross, awakened the wrath of ocean spirits, met Death himself, and must now walk the earth for ever and share his tragic tale of sin, guilt and - ultimately - redemption. This Macmillan Collector's Library edition of Samuel Taylor Coleridge's longest major poem features illustrations by Gustave Dore, the most remarkable wood engraver of the nineteenth century, and an introduction by writer and journalist Ned Halley. Designed to appeal to the booklover, the Macmillan Collector's Library is a series of beautiful gift editions of much loved classic titles. Macmillan Collector's Library are books to love and treasure.

Samuel Taylor Coleridge was born in the English town of Ottery St Mary, where his father was a vicar, in 1772. The youngest of ten children, he attended school with Charles Lamb and spent two years at Jesus College, Cambridge, where he was introduced to radical politics and theology by the poet Robert Southey. He first met William Wordsworth in 1795 and they published a joint poetry collection, Lyrical Ballads, in 1798; this highly praised volume, which started the English Romantic Movement, contained the first version of The Rime of the Ancient Mariner. Alongside finding success with his poetry, Coleridge's critical work, especially on Shakespeare, was highly influential. However much of his life was blighted by illness, opium addiction, financial problems and depression. He died of heart failure in London in 1834.