Abstract
This chapter examines the life-changing events between Coleridge’s return from Germany in July 1799 and settling in London to become a staff writer for Daniel Stuart’s Morning Post in November 1799. The death of Coleridge’s nine-month-old son, Berkeley, during his stay in Germany marked the beginning of estrangement from his wife Sara. But while relations with his wife were strained upon his return, Coleridge resumed his friendship with his brother-in-law Robert Southey. Their joint poem, ‘The Devil’s Thoughts’, was published in the Morning Post to popular acclaim and led to Coleridge’s employment as a staff writer from November 1799 onwards. In October Coleridge visited the Wordsworths in the Lake District and fell in love with Sara Hutchinson. His disaffection from his marriage and his desire to be in the North with the Wordsworths and Hutchinsons found expression in satirical epigrams, translated from the German, which he published in the Morning Post in December 1799.