It takes a great mind to study a great mind.

The literary critic John Livingston Lowes puts his reputation on the line by chosing to analyse the sources, thoughts and imagination of the poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge.

The result, 'The Road to Xanadu', is a remarkable and insightful examination of the creative processes and reading material that inspired 'The Rime of the Ancient Mariner' and 'Kubla Khan'.

Lowes brilliantly uses his study of Coleridge as a springboard to a more wide-ranging analysis of the imagination.

If you like Coleridge's work, you will be fascinated by this look into the mind of a literary giant.

John Livingston Lowes (1867-1945) was an American scholar and critic of English literature. His best-known subjects were Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Geoffrey Chaucer, author of 'The Canterbury Tales'.

His most famous work is 'The Road to Xanadu: A Study in the Ways of the Imagination', which examines the sources of Coleridge's 'The Rime of the Ancient Mariner' and 'Kubla Khan'.