The Prelude

It was… with startled joy that I encountered this glorious 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, this volume is illustrated 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.

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.

The joy of the object... is its reproduction of some 130 paintings, drawings and other works of art appertaining to the poem. They are scattered throughout the book, all in full colour, almost all contemporary with "The Prelude" and some of them actually seen by Wordsworth himself.

Take up this book, which you can readily imagine starting off in its readers a lifetime’s love for the great poem, as well as a fascination for the diverse grounds from which it grew.

The editors have revisited the two manuscripts of the youthful, spontaneous version of 1805... The text is lightly but skillfully annotated and the whole is presented with the authority and the freshness it deserves.

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.