Originally conceived as a short preface to Sibylline Leaves, by the time Coleridge's Biographia Literaria was published in 1817 it had expanded into a two-volume apologia for the Romantic poet's "literary life and opinions." Coleridge here develops a theory of the poetic imagination, in which an artist's passion, will, memory, and perception intersect to engender her or his work. This unique edition is essential to understanding the influences and ideology of Romanticism.