The Complete Poetical Works of William Wordsworth in Ten Volumes: The Grasmere Edition by Wordsworth, William - 1911

Boston and New York: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1911. First Edition, First Printing [Thus]. Hardcover. Fine/Largely Fine. A Fine copy of the Grasmere Edition of William Wordsworth's Complete Poetical Works in ten volumes, each with a black spine label with the lettering thereon in gilt and with each Volume having its closed page block's top edge being in gilt as well. This appears to be an unread set with many of the page pairs unopened at their leading edge. The set remains in its rare original shipping box which, of course, lacks the front board which presumably was removed and discarded when opened by a prior owner. The dust jackets have yapped edges at the top and bottom and thus are larger than required for the books with the excess material being designed to be folded over each closed page block's top and bottom edges, resulting in these page block edges remaining remarkably bright and clean. While showing slight wear, eight of the ten jackets remain in Fine condition. Volume I's spine panel head shows some loss and Volume X's jacket shows a tear running horizontally across the spine panel and continuing across the front panel at an upward angle. (This tear, along with some additional rather small ones to this Volume's dust jacket, have been repaired with translucent archival tape applied to the jacket's verso, and the portion of the front panel lying above the front panel repair has some wrinkling due to the earlier insertion of the volume into the box when torn.) The renowned Romantic Poet William Wordsworth, together with his friend Samuel Taylor Coleridge, are credited with launching the Romantic Age in English Literature with the publication of their joint work "Lyrical Ballads" in 1798, a work which was comprised primarily by Wordsworth's writing -- which occupied approximately two-thirds of the volume's pages, with the balance of the textual pages being occupied by the four works contributed by Coleridge. "Lyrical Ballads" was quite an important work. In an advertisement for the volume, Wordsworth stated: "The majority of the following poems are to be considered as experiments. They were written chiefly with a view to ascertain how far the language of conversation in the middle and lower classes of society is adapted to the purpose of poetic pleasure." This departure from the norm by writing Poetry in the vernacular, as well as the poetry's focus on the life of the common and largely uneducated country folk, was designed to make Poetry more accessible to the masses and, as these folk also were the subject of the Poems, the Poems constituted a massive shift toward modern literature -- in consequence of which the volume is considered to be a Landmark in English Literature. [Notably, 'Lyrical Ballads" contains "Tintern Abbey", one of Wordsworth's most famous poems, as well as Coleridge's "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner".) William Wordsworth served as England's Poet Laureate from April 6, 1843 (when he succeeded Robert Southey) until his death on April 23, 1850 when then was succeeded by Tennyson. Such an important figure in English Literature was Wordsworth that on appointing him, Prime Minister Robert Peel assured Wordsworth that no work would be required from Wordsworth as Poet Laureate due to his advanced age and poor health. This is a RARE set of Wordsworth's Works, complete with the exceedingly difficult to find dust jackets (which quite remarkably retain their excess material as noted above) and still housed in their RARE original shipping box. EXCEEDINGLY SCARCE TO RARE. [Please Note: This is a heavy set and the Buyer's shipping cost will exceed the amount quoted by this site. Please Also Note: We have included in this listing as many images as this site allows. For many additional images, see our Allington Books website.]