Lyrical Ballads - volume two (First Edition)

Wordsworth, William; Coleridge, Samuel Taylor

Pub: T.N Longman and O.Rees, London. 1800.

 First Edition, first issue of Volume II. With p. 210 with only 10 lines and the final errata leaf with three items; p. 64, line 1 reads "Oft I had heard of Lucy Gray" and line 6 reads "She dwelt on a wild Moor;" p. 83, line 6, the "last days" are followed by a comma; p. 92, line 2 "He" is capitalized and p. 129, line 11 has "when they please" spaced normally. Small octavo (6 1/8 x 3 7/8 inches; [4], 227, [1, errata].

Small octavo. Mild foxing from the contents page to page 2. Also from page 50 - 65. Bookplate of "Fanny Alicia Fenning" to front pastedown. Small amount of professional repair work done to the title page which is darkened at top. Mild wrinkling to first two endpapers. A small "C" written in ink to the top of first endpaper. Marbled cloth. Half leather. Gilt ruling to front and rear panels. Paper title labels with gilt decoration. Very Good.

The second part of the two volume set which ushered in the Romantic Era. This first edition of volume two contains 41 new poems among which are a number of Wordsworth's most well known, such as "Lucy Poems", "The Old Cumberland Beggar" and "Michael, A Pastoral". Many of the poems were written mainly with a view to judge how far the language of conversation in the middle and lower classes is adapted to the purpose of poetic pleasure. They are today seen as a point of radical departure for English poetry.