Mary E. Coleridge (1861–1907)

Mary Elizabeth Coleridge was the great-grand niece of Samuel Taylor Coleridge and the great-niece of Sara Coleridge, and the daughter of musically talented parents. She grew up in a literary and artistic environment with family friends that included Robert Browning, Alfred, Lord Tennyson, Fanny Kemble, and John Everett Millais. She read widely and began writing as a child. The family traveled to Europe each year, and by age 19, Mary knew German, French, Italian, and Hebrew; later, she learned Greek and Latin. By age 20, she was publishing her writings in leading periodicals. She wrote critical essays and poetry, the latter published under the pseudonym Anodos. She also published five novels, beginning with The Seven Sleepers of Ephesus in 1893; the best-known was the historical romance The King with Two Faces (1897). She traveled widely throughout her life, although she continued to make her home in London with her parents. She volunteered to teach grammar and literature at the London Working Women's College from 1895 to 1907. She died at age 45 from complications of appendicitis, leaving behind the unfinished manuscript for her next novel and hundreds of unpublished poems.