Books

London: printed for Longman, Hurst, Rees, and Orme, by R. Taylor and Co. 38, Shoe-Lane, 1805. 2 volumes 12mo, pp. [4], lxiv, 200, [4] notes; [4], 248; contemporary full straight-grain black morocco, blue sprinkled edges; extremities rubbed and worn, spine on first volume rather chaffed; the text is clean and the bindings are sound. Early owner's inscription of "Jane Boates, Rose Hill." In this two-volume fourth edition, Wordsworth's Lyrical Ballads - a foundational publication in the shaping of British romantic poetry, and all poetry in English thereafter - achieved its final form. Largely based on the 1802 third edition, it is the last of the early lifetime editions and the final edition to include contributions by Coleridge. Healey 17; Wise, Wordsworth, 7. Printing and the Mind of Man 256 (for the 1800 edition): "Its outline of the supreme function of poetry, expressed in such phrases as that poetry 'takes its origin from emotion recollected in tranquillity,' set a new tone; and…

Originally published in 1798 in collaboration with Samuel Taylor Coleridge, 'Lyrical Ballads' is regarded as a seminal work in the English Romantic movement.