Lyrical Ballads: 1798 and 1802, Paperback

Lyrical Ballads is one of the most important collections of poetry ever published, and includes poems such as 'The Ancient Mariner' and 'Lines written a few miles above Tintern Abbey'.

The inclusion of both texts shows how the collection developed against the changing political situation of the time, and the private lives of the poets. Includes Wordsworth's famous Preface in its fullest form, a key document for Romanticism and for poetry in general, and his important Appendix on Poetic Diction. Wide-ranging introduction offers insight into the experience of the collection's first readers and the astonishing quality of the poems.

It provides biographical background, an account of the poets' collaboration, and how they were affected by the political situation at home and abroad. Appendices include Coleridge's famous glosses to 'The Ancient Mariner', added in 1817, Wordsworth's letters to Charles James Fox and John Wilson, and Wilson's letter to Wordsworth, which complement the Preface in representing Wordsworth's defence of his poems.

Helpful notes provide glosses and contextual information as well as details of composition and revision. 'Listen, Stranger!' Wordsworth and Coleridge's joint collection of poems has often been singled out as the founding text of English Romanticism. Within this initially unassuming, anonymous volume were many of the poems that came to define their age and which have continued to delight readers ever since, including 'The Rime of the Ancient Mariner', the 'Lucy' poems, 'Lines written a few miles above Tintern Abbey', 'A Slumber did my Spirit seal' and many more. Wordsworth's famous Preface is a manifesto not just for Romanticism but for poetry in general. This is the only edition to print both the original 1798 collection and the expanded 1802 edition, with the fullest version of the Preface and Wordsworth's important Appendix on Poetic Diction. It offers modern readers a sense of what it was like to encounter Lyrical Ballads for the first time, and to see how it developed. Important letters are included, as well as a wide-ranging introduction and generous notes.