Coleridge wrote this letter to his brother George while he and Wordsworth were staying in Kendal. It can be fairly described as a manifesto issued at a turning point of his life: after his return from Malta and not long before his estrangement from Wordsworth. It is primarily concerned with Coleridge’s troubles in publishing The Friend, a work he describes in the letter as 'the outlet of my whole reservoir as well as of the living Fountain till it shall be dried up’.
The Friend was meant to be a weekly printed paper that discussed all sorts of topics, from literature to philosophy, politics and current events. Although The Friend was an improbable success, owing both to Coleridge’s financial struggles and to his mental health, its first instalment was published in June 1809 and Coleridge dedicated months of work to its initial creation and subsequent survival. Markedly unconventional and usually hard to understand, it had over 500 subscribers, several of which were prominent members of English society, including Parliament members and well-known authors of the time.