Selected Poems

A pioneer of the Romantic movement, William Wordsworth wrote about the natural world and human emotion with a clarity of language which revolutionized poetry.

Part of the Macmillan Collector’s Library; a series of stunning, clothbound, pocket-sized classics with gold foiled edges and ribbon markers. These beautiful books make perfect gifts or a treat for any book lover. This edition has an introduction by Peter Harness.

Selected Poems brings together some of Wordsworth’s most acclaimed and influential works, including an extract from his magnus opus, The Prelude, alongside shorter poems such as ‘I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud’, ‘To a Skylark’ and ‘Tintern Abbey’. Wordsworth’s poems, often written at his home in Grasmere in the beautiful English Lake District, are lyrical evocations of nature and of spirituality. They have a force and clarity of language akin to everyday speech which was truly groundbreaking.

Review

Wordsworth is a figure of supreme interest -- James Fenton ― New York Times

He has done more for the sanity of his generation than any other writer -- Ralph Waldo Emerson

Wordsworth may be trusted as a guide in everything -- John Ruskin

The intrepidity with which Wordsworth explored his own inner life and the generosity with which he shared it remain more than convincing: even now, they continue to define the highest aspirations of modern poetry -- Adam Kirsch ― New Yorker

About the Author

William Wordsworth was born on 7 April 1770 at Cockermouth, in the English Lake District, the son of a lawyer. He was one of five children and developed a close bond with his only sister, Dorothy, whom he lived with for most of his life. At the age of seventeen, shortly after the deaths of his parents, Wordsworth went to St John’s College, Cambridge, and after graduating visited Revolutionary France. Upon returning to England he published his first poem and devoted himself wholly to writing. He became great friends with other Romantic poets and collaborated with Samuel Taylor Coleridge on Lyrical Ballads. In 1843, he succeeded Robert Southey as Poet Laureate and died in the year ‘Prelude’ was finally published, 1850.