aAn absolutely fascinating selectionanotable for its women poets, its intriguing thematic categories, and its helpful mini-biographies.a (Richard Holmes)

Jonathan Wordsworth, a descendant of William, is Chairman of the Wordsworth Trust & retired Professor of English Literature at Oxford. He has edited and written widely on Romantic poetry, including The Prelude: Four Texts (Penguin). Jessica Wordsworth is editing Coleridge's selected poems for Penguin.

The romantic period: origins - revolution and romantic vision; a new style and a new spirit; "And all things in himself" - romantic Platonism; the romantic poets in context - the first generation; a gap; the second generation; the sense of an ending. The poetry: romantic hallmarks: "To the South Downs (Elegiac Sonnets 1784), Charlotte Smith; "To a Mountain Daisy (1786), Robert, Burns; "A London Summer Morning (1794, publ. 1804), Mary Robinson; "Kubla Khan" (Nov. 1797, publ.1816), Samuel Taylor Coleridge; "Old Familiar Faces" (1798); "Lucy Poems" (winter 1798-9, publ. "Lyrical Ballads" 1800), William Wordsworth; "Lucy Gray" (c.Nov.); "Strange Fits of Passion I have known" (c.Dec.);"She Dwelt Among the Untrodden Ways" (c.Dec); "A Slumber did my Spirit Seal (c.Dec.); "Three Years She Grew (Feb.); "Hohenlinden" (1801, publ.1809), Thomas Campbell; "The Inchcape Rock" (1803), Robert Southey; "And Did Those Feet" (1802-4, engraved Milton c.1809), William Blake. (part contents)