The Prelude (The Four Texts) by William Wordsworth
*contains spoilers* William Wordsworth, born and raised in the wonderfully named Cockermouth, was the obsessive author of this expansive collection of works, which comes in four different manuscripts: the 1798 MS, which, as an introductory draft, appears in a mere one book; the 1799 MS, which offers elaboration in two books; the 1805 MS, which is much more plentiful in thirteen books; and the 1850 MS, yes, written forty-five years after the previous MS, consisting of fourteen books. The edition I bought, Penguin Classics, comes with all four MSS and an introduction by Jonathon Wordsworth, a descendent of Wordsworth’s brother, Christopher, which is very handy when even just considering the layout on first approaching. Firstly, we have the first draft of 1798, titled ‘Was It For This?’, which started the whole exercise of Wordsworth’s autobiographical tome, and was inspired by Coleridge’s suggestion that Wordsworth write ‘the first great philosophical poem’. Wordsworth and Coleridge were...