In this lively and stimulating study, detailed analysis of the poems is closely grounded in the literary and historical contexts in which Lyrical Ballads was first conceived, realized and subsequently expanded into two volumes. Documenting the revisions of the early edition, John Blades carefully reassesses the poems in the light of Wordsworth's and Coleridge's literary theories, while Part II of the study broadens the discussion by tracing the critical history of Lyrical Ballads over the two centuries since its first publication. Undergraduate students of English taking modules on Romanticism, Romantic Poetry, Eighteenth- or Nineteenth-Century Writing, Romantics and Revolution, or Writing and Revolution Secondary students of English studying Lyrical Ballads; teachers of English; general readers; library sale