The Prelude - by William Wordsworth (Hardcover)

About the Book

"The Prelude, William Wordsworth's masterful autobiographical work, composed in blank verse, is generally considered the poem at the heart of the Romantic movement and one of the great poems in the English language. In this fully illustrated and annotated edition, it finally receives the treatment it deserves"--

Book Synopsis

A gorgeous new edition of the definitive text of Wordsworth's The Prelude, with full-color contemporaneous illustrations that illuminate this epic poem. With a new afterword by Helen Vendler.

The Prelude, William Wordsworth's masterful autobiographical work composed in blank verse, is generally considered the poem at the heart of the Romantic movement and one of the great poems in the English language. In this fully illustrated and annotated edition, the work receives the treatment it deserves. Inspired by his dear friend, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, the poem charts the development of the author's mind from childhood to his experiences in Cambridge, London, the Alps, and France, touching on subjects ranging from leisure to literature, nature to imagination, and everything in between.

A meditation on the self, this work still stands as a masterpiece of English literature and is here complemented and enhanced by two hundred contemporaneous color plates that illuminate the text. Scrupulously selected and newly re-edited from the definitive manuscripts in existence, the marginal notes and glosses provide an extra touch that makes this a truly enlightening reading experience.

Helen Vendler's afterword is an appreciation of the poem which also puts in it context for American readers.

Review Quotes

"A marvelous book―the great poem magnificently illustrated with 130 full-color paintings, drawing, maps and other visual aids contemporaneous with its writing."-- "Lloyd Schwartz, WBUR & NPR's The ARTery"

"An outsize, gorgeous book, replete with paintings and drawings―landscapes, houses, portraits―contemporaneous with the poem. At last we have a worthy visual counterpart to one of the timeless monuments of English verse. Provides American readers with a sound sense not merely of where Wordsworth was but―through its lavish illustrations―what he found so rousing. The book clarifies how and why he became England's best-loved nature poet."-- "Wall Street Journal"

"Set in a handsome, hardbound edition that equally fits in a coffee table display or upon a scholar's desk, this new edition is appropriate for the amateur and expert alike. . . . There are no faults to be had with this book. It is aesthetically pleasing, intellectually rigorous, and completely satisfying."-- "News and Times"

"With startled joy I encountered the glorious new edition of The Prelude by my Harvard colleague James Engell, working in collaboration with the independent scholar Michael D. Raymond (who sought out the invaluable illustrations). Handsomely produced in a broad horizontal format (twelve by nine and a half inches), the volume is illustrated on almost every other page by paintings or drawings contemporaneous with the poem itself. These offer to the American reader's eye an array of scenes indispensable to an understanding of Wordsworth's world―lakes, crags, nocturnes, ships at sea, the Alps, Stonehenge, Revolutionary France, Cambridge, London. At last―with Engell's eloquent and succinct introduction, helpful marginal glosses, notes, a chronology, and maps―American readers and students have a Prelude of their own."-- "Helen Vendler, New York Review of Books"

About the Author

William Wordsworth (1770James Engell, the Gurney Professor of English and Professor of Comparative Literature Emeritus at Harvard University, chaired the Department of English there for seven years. He is author of four previous books and more than fifty articles and book chapters about eighteenth-century and romantic literature, higher education in America, and environmental studies. He was a senior fellow at the National Humanities Center and elected a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Michael D. Raymond has studied the poetry of William Wordsworth for decades--a catalyst for his life-long search for deeply rooted, private places of remembrance. After earning a B.A. in English from Yale, he received his M.A. from Harvard and a PhD from Fordham University.