Translated by J.W. Matthews

First published in French in 1896 and appearing in this translation the year after, Emile Legouis’s Early life of William Wordsworth 1770–1798 was the first to focus attention on the study of The prelude as the key to understanding Wordsworth’s whole development.

It was also the first biographical work to stress, and illustrate by careful and attentive reading of his poetry, the importance of Wordsworth’s early radical political commitment which, in the form of his social thinking, remained with him for the rest of his life. The author also lays particular emphasis on, and produces copious evidence for, Wordsworth’s sympathetic involvement with the French Revolution.

The great Wordsworth scholar and first editor of The prelude, Ernest de Selincourt, wrote: ‘To a just valuation of Wordsworth’s poetry and a full understanding of his life and character no critic has made a more valuable contribution than Emile Legouis, and his great book marked a veritable epoch in the study of the poet.’

In his introduction Nicholas Roe argues for Legouis’s continuing relevance as one of Wordsworth’s most important critics, and as an important key to understanding current approaches to Wordsworth at the end of the twentieth century.

Published by Libris in 1988