Sara was the fourth child and only daughter of the poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge. She grew up in the Lake district with an extended family that included her uncle, Robert Southey, and her aunt Lovell, widow of the poet Robert Lovell. The Wordsworths were her neighbors.

She was educated at home by various relatives, especially Southey. Her first published work was a translation she did for him while he was writing the Tale of Paraguay. Her next work was translating from medieval French.

Sara married her cousin, Henry Nelson Coleridge, in 1829. Verses she wrote for her own children were published and very popular, as was the fairy story. After Henry's death in 1843, Sara was left with the task of editing her father's works.