Best known work

• The King with Two Faces, 1897

Genres

• Fiction - Novels
• Poetry
• Journalism
• Biography / Autobiography

Nom de plume

Mary Elizabeth Coleridge, Anodos

Social class

Upper class

Parental background

Her father was a clerk of the assize and great nephew of Samuel Taylor Coleridge. She was largely home-educated by her scholarly father and private tutors. Her family entertained many eminent musicians, writers and artists.

At publication of best known work

• Age: 36
• Marital status: Unmarried
• Number of children: 0

Physical description

Edith Sichel notes that "it is difficult to give any true impression of her appearance―of the fair hair, the small head, the long swaying figure, which stooped rather forwards when she moved, or when she talked with self-forgetfulness. She looked very much like one of the women in Blake's pictures". She describes Coleridge's slender figure, delight for "picturesque clothes" and jewellery given by her friends. Her eyes "blue eyes with gleams of grey, rather observant than dreamy. Her dreaminess was expressed by her mouth" (Gathered Leaves from the Prose of Mary E. Coleridge).

Did you know?

Her great-great uncle was Samuel Taylor Coleridge and throughout life she felt some of her work was overshadowed by her famous ancestor and hence adopted the pseudonym Anodos ('on no road') (Katherine Mcgowran, ODNB).

Additional information

See Victorian Web for a biography of Coleridge and her works. See also Gathered Leaves from the Prose of Mary E. Coleridge (1910) at the Hathi Trust for a memoir preface by Edith Sichel.