Coleridge started taking opium to relieve the pains of neuralgia, and he became addicted to it. This addiction created great difficulties for him and is believed by some to have made his work much less than what it might have been. He also suffered from ill health and had an unhappy marriage and financial problems.

Among Coleridge’s close friends were the essayist Charles Lamb and Wordsworth. Coleridge, Wordsworth, and Southey were known as the Lake Poets because they lived in the Lake District of England and expressed similar poetic ideals. Coleridge’s personal influence was great. In his last years he was visited by many noted men. “He is the only wonderful man I ever met,” said Wordsworth. Thomas Carlyle called him a “king of men.” Coleridge died in Highgate, England, on July 25, 1834.