Prelude

This new edition contains the brief first draft, Was It For This, from 1798, the two books of The Prelude completed in 1799, and the text in its 1805 and 1850 versions.The editor, Jonathan Wordsworth, provides an invaluable introduction to the texts.

The great Romantic poem of human consciousness, The Prelude takes as its theme ‘the growth of a poet’s mind’.