Anon: how Coleridge fooled his Scottish publisher over Faust Phil Miller Arts Correspondent It has been "hidden in plain sight" for nearly 200 years - the evidence that shows one of Britain's greatest poets, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, wrote a major work anonymously to avoid the ire of his Scottish publisher.

Yesterday academics in the US declared they believe they have discovered a previously unknown work by Coleridge, creator of The Rime of the Ancient Mariner and Kubla Khan.

The 1821 English translation of Faust, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe's German tale about a man selling his soul to Satan, had previously been attributed to "anonymous". However, after carrying out statistical computer analysis of the writer's "literary fingerprint", Professor James McKusick, of the University of Montana, has declared he is sure the work was written by the poet.

He believes that Coleridge, a notorious user of opium, had agreed with John Murray, the leading Scottish publisher of great writers such as Lord Byron and Mary Shelley, to translate Faust in 1814 and had even received a £100 advance.

However, the writer, who was also renowned for his skills in the art of procrastination, never produced the project.

Then, in 1820, a collection of engravings to illustrate Faust arrived in England from Germany and publisher Thomas Boosey, a rival of Murray's, decided he needed some text to illustrate the engravings.

A letter apparently shows Boosey knew Coleridge had worked on a translation and contacted the poet. Mr McKusick says he believed the poet decided to accept the project, but knew he could not allow his name to go on it, given his earlier abandoned translation, and his danger of risking John Murray's anger.

"We don't have Coleridge's direct response," the academic said. "But I speculate it went something like this: Coleridge said, Yes, if you pay me, I can produce a verse translation quickly - because it's almost done - but you must swear never to reveal my name as the translator.

" It must go to the grave. Otherwise, Murray will come after me for his £100, plus interest, plus breach of contract'."

Boosey's subsequent book was popular enough to receive a second printing in 1824 but later in the century it was attributed to another translator of the period, George Soane. Scholars have always suspected Coleridge started a translation but had not previously thought he had finished it.

It was Mr McKusick's Pulitzer Prize-winning mentor, Paul Zall, who first came up with the theory that the anonymous translation was the Devon-born poet's work, as long ago as 1971.

Yet his theory found little truck with other scholars of English romantic poetry.

Publishing history

John Murray Publishers, which has one of the most esteemed reputations in publishing, was founded by the first John Murray, who was born in Edinburgh in the 1768.

The business was founded by him in London, and he was succeeded by his son, also John Murray, who transformed the publishing house into one of the most important and influential in Britain.

He was the publisher of Jane Austen, Sir Walter Scott and many others. Lord Byron became a friend.

In 2005 his descendant, John R Murray, sold its archives, which contain manuscripts and letters, to the National Library of Scotland for £31.2m.