September 18, 1798

Lyrical Ballads

Lyrical Ballads appears anonymously in London bookshops

On 3 October Wordsworth wrote from Germany that he still did not know who was publishing his own book. It appeared in London the next day.

The listed date is not the publication date

The calendar entry gives 18 September 1798, which the strongest bibliographical evidence consulted does not support. J. and A. Arch issued the anonymous first edition of Lyrical Ballads, with a Few Other Poems in London on 4 October 1798.

Dorothy Wordsworth wrote on 13 September that the book was printed but not published, and a shipment of copies reached James Losh on 18 September. The Cambridge Companion and the Texas A&M scholarly edition both identify 4 October as the regular London publication.

The 18 September date may derive from the arrival of those books from Bristol, or from the poets' arrival in Hamburg, rather than from any documented public release.

Printed in Bristol, sold off to London

Biggs and Cottle printed the octavo volume in Bristol. Joseph Cottle, in financial difficulty, decided not to publish it himself and sold the rights and copies to the London firm J. and A. Arch, which issued it with a replacement title page.

The existence of Bristol- and London-imprint states is what produces the conflicting accounts of when the book was first "published."

The run was 500 copies at five shillings, and it took almost three years to sell out.

Twenty-three poems and no names

The collection held nineteen poems by William Wordsworth and four by Samuel Taylor Coleridge, opening with Coleridge's The Rime of the Ancyent Marinere and closing with Wordsworth's Tintern Abbey.

Neither name appeared on the title page, so buyers met the volume as an anonymous experiment in poetic language and subject matter; the attribution readers now take for granted is retrospective.

The famous Preface belongs to the enlarged 1800 edition, not to this one, which carried only Wordsworth's short Advertisement explaining the experimental use of conversational language.

Sources

Researched 24 Aug 2026 6 sources not yet audited Date disputed

How this was checked

Researched from the web into a fact sheet and rewritten from that sheet. This article has not yet had an independent model audit. How the pipeline works →

Date disputed. Sources disagree; the research places it at 1798-10-04.

What the sources leave uncertain

The first edition has Bristol- and London-imprint states, producing conflicting descriptions of when it was first “published.” Dorothy Wordsworth wrote on 13 September that it was printed but not published.
Some accounts place a Bristol issue in September, and a copy shipment reached James Losh on 18 September. The Cambridge Companion and the Texas A&M scholarly edition identify 4 October as the regular London publication date.
The listed 18 September date may derive from the arrival of books from Bristol or the poets’ arrival in Hamburg, rather than a documented public release.