Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1722-1834), also known for Rime of the Ancient Mariner and Kubla Khan, claims in his Preface that he had the whole poem in mind from the beginning, when it came to his mind “with the liveliness of a vision” (Coleridge 652); nevertheless, the first two parts were published alone and never completed. In these first two parts, Christabel, an innocent young woman (and a fairly typical Gothic damsel in distress), goes to the forest to pray in the middle of the night and meets Geraldine, a woman who presents herself as another damsel in distress. Christabel secretly brings her home and, in a scene that is likely at least partially responsible for early reviews that called the poem "disgusting," Christabel sees something that she (and the speaker) finds simultaneously hor