Lyrical Ballads, with Other Poems

Philadephia: Printed and Sold by James Humphreys. 1802.

First American edition printed from the London Second edition. Two volumes in one. 12mo. in 6s. 160x100mm. pp. xxii, 1-5, [6], [13]-159 [1bl]; 170. Lacking final leaf of notes in volume two. Later half calf, marbled paper covered boards, spine with four raised bands, compartments decorated in gilt, maroon morocco label lettered in gilt. Top edge gilt, marbled endpapers. Front pastedown with book label of Christopher Clark Geest. At the head of the first poem in volume one is inscribed "Maria Breaton". Extremities rubbed and internally there is some browning but overall a very good copy. First published in England in 1798, the second London edition of Lyrical Ballads included the Preface which is regarded as a manifesto of Romanticism. It was this second edition that made it across the Atlantic Ocean and introduced American readers to the English Romantic movement. Although Wordsworth was the driving force behind the book and contributed most of the poems (including the sublime Tintern Abbey), perhaps the most celebrated work in the collection is the Coleridge's The Rime of Ancyent Marinere which was later to be revised and glossed in Sibylline Leaves.