The Design of BIOGRAPHIA LITERARIA (London: Allen & Unwin, 1983)
In what is probably the first self-conscious or highly intentional work of narrative nonfiction, Coleridge explains how imagination operates by recounting the key personal experiences that led him to his now-famous insight into this crucial creative faculty. Imagination provides (1) our deepest insights into the character of reality, (2) our finest, most transparent use of words, and (3) our most profound access to God. The activity of imagination is the "image of God" within us; it is, as the Biographia explains "the echo in the finite of the infinite I AM."