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Fairlight Books has acquried world rights, incuding audio, to The Second Person from Porlock, a Coleridge-themed novel by Dennis Hamley, in a deal made directly with the author.
The novel is inspired by a real-life handwritten note found within a collection of poems by Samuel Taylor Coleridge. The note, which disparages the poem, is scrawled into the margin beside "Kubla Khan", in a collection of poems housed in the Old Library, Jesus College, Cambridge.
In the novel, Hamley will blend fact and fiction to offer up a theory for the origin of the note whilst providing a "fresh and colourful" portrayal of the poet. It will be published in November 2021.
Hamley is the author of children's books including The Ellen Trilogy and The Long Journey of Joslin de Lay series, both published with Joslin Books.
He said: "Samuel Taylor Coleridge fascinates me. This novel is a 'riff' on his chaotic life. He is always present, mainly in guilt-filled memories, opium-induced dreams and supernatural hallucinations. There are two fictional characters whose stories twine round his and two plot mainsprings; one actual, one a 'what if?'"