The Five-Book Prelude

The Five-Book Prelude of March 1804 is the great work of Wordsworth's poetic maturity. Edited now for the first time by Duncan Wu from the original manuscripts at Dove Cottage, it contains some of the finest passages of poetry later to appear in the thirteen-book poem of 1804-5 - the spots of time, the Winander boy, the discharged soldier, recollections of Cambridge, the infant prodigy, and the climbing of Snowdon. At once less discursive than the thirteen- and fourteen-book versions, but with more of the great poetry than the 1799 two-part poem, the Five-Book Prelude provides students and general readers alike with an approachable introduction to Wordsworth's greatest work. For many it is likely to become the Prelude of choice.

Duncan Wu is Reader in English Literature at Glasgow University. He has edited Blackwell's Romanticism: An Anthology (1994) and Romanticism: A Critical Reader (1995). His Romantic Women Poets: An Anthology was published by Blackwell in 1997. He is also editor of the Blackwell Companion to Romanticism.