Specimens of the Table Talk of the Late Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Summary

Specimens of the Table Talk of the Late Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1835) is a collection of the English Romantic poet's verbally delivered thoughts, edited by his nephew Henry Nelson Coleridge. S. T. Coleridge was famous in his time for his monologues, as opposed to conversation, on a variety of subjects, but especially on philosophy and religion. Some of his best-known phrases come from this work, such as poetry being "the best words in the best order" and watching Edmund Kean act being "like reading Shakespeare by flashes of lightning". Through the 19th century and beyond this was perhaps the most widely read book by or about Coleridge.