Books

FIRST EDITION. 12mo. Half titles, final erratum leaf vol. I. Sympathetically bound in 20thC half tan calf, marbled boards, spines ruled & with devices in gilt, black & maroon labels. A v.g. clean & attractive copy. Wise (8). This keenly anticipated collection of poems was Wordsworth's first new publication since the second volume of Lyrical Ballads appeared in 1800. It included many of his best-known and most celebrated poems, including 'I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud' (untitled in its original version, simply appearing in Volume II as poem '7' in a section titled Moods of My Own), 'To a Butterfly', and 'The Solitary Reaper'. Now considered as one of the defining collections of the early Romantic period, it suffered at the hands of contemporary critics, with Byron offering the particularly harsh estimation of 'puerile'.

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