Richard Holmes Biography

British biographer, born in London, educated at Churchill College, Cambridge. Shelley: The Pursuit (1974) was written in the course of travels in England, Wales, Switzerland, France, and Italy, which he undertook to reconstruct Shelley's journeyings from 1811 onward. Coleridge (1982), a valuable critical introduction, was succeeded by Coleridge: Early Visions (1989), the first volume of an ambitious biography providing a comprehensive treatment of Coleridge's psychology and personal relationships. Footsteps: Adventures of a Romantic Biographer (1985) was Holmes's imaginative autobiographical account of the itineraries of his researches between 1964 and 1976; the book also conveys its author's interest in Gérard de Nerval, about whom he wrote a radio play entitled ‘Inside the Tower’, which was broadcast in 1977. His other works include My Fantoms (1976), his translations of stories by Théophile Gautier; an edition of A Short Residence in Sweden (1987) by Mary Wollstonecraft and William Godwin; and Dr Johnson and Mr Savage (1993), a biographical study.