Lyrical ballads, 1798

William Wordsworth (1770–1850) was born in Cockermouth in the Lake District and orphaned young. As a student he went to France during the Revolution and was swept up in its hopes, and he left behind a French daughter. Back in England he formed a close friendship with Samuel Taylor Coleridge, and together they published Lyrical Ballads in 1798.

He settled with his sister Dorothy at Dove Cottage in Grasmere and spent his life writing about nature, memory and the growth of the mind, above all in his long autobiographical poem, The Prelude, published after his death. He became Poet Laureate in 1843.