27 JANUARY 1996, page 33

In All His Words Most Wonderful

Jane Gardam THE LIFE OF SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE by Rosemary Ashton Blackwell, £25, pp. 480 W riting a life of Coleridge must be like trying to harness a cloud, a drifting cloud,......

How Not To Succeed

Caroline Moore LAST ORDERS by Graham Swift Picador, £15.99, pp. 295 R ather oddly, the list of works 'Also by Graham Swift' on the fly-pages of this lat- est novel does not......