Samuel Taylor Coleridge's greatest work, "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner", is utterly unique, unlike any other ballad. No narrative poem has rivaled it in combining scenes of terror with scenes of incomparable beauty. Although enormously popular in the nineteenth century, it is seldom read or studied today. This annotated version by Martin Gardner will help to renew the appreciation and deepen the understanding of Coleridge's unjustly neglected masterpiece. Preceding the poem is a biographical sketch of the great poet, which emphasizes those aspects of his many-sided life and personality that have the strongest bearing on the poem, especially on circumstances surrounding its composition.