A literary criticism of the book "Coleridge's Ancient Mariner" by J. C. C. Mays is presented. Topics include focuses on the poem "Dejection: an Ode" as the opening chapter is called ‘The Case To Be Made', and he concedes that ‘other poems may hold more attraction for those reading Coleridge for the first time' whilst still insisting that the Dejection Ode ‘rewards attention to an equal extent, although of a different kind'.