The publication of Lyrical Ballads was English poetry’s defining moment; its revolutionary style and content influencing every poet who followed from 1798 to the present day. Poetry of the head became poetry of the heart and soul. The additional poems in this, the expanded 1800 edition, include many of the best loved in the language, and marked the first appearance of Wordsworth’s controversial Preface. Nigel Nelson is a distinguished Fleet Street journalist of 40 years standing, and he has brought that experience to bear on painstaking and original research for a brilliant reassessment of the lives and reputations of Wordsworth and Coleridge. He is political editor of the Sunday Mirror and Sunday People and appears regularly on BBC News and Sky News.