THE POETICAL WORKS OF WILLIAM WORDSWORTH: In Seven Volumes.

Seven volume edition, reprinting the 1836-7 six-volume collected edition prepared by the poet, with the addition of the 1842 'Poems, Chiefly of Early and Late Years' as Vol VII. Handsomely bound in contemporary full polished calf by Morrell, London. The boards ruled in gilt with decorative corner devices; the spines with five raised bands, compartments ruled and decorated in gilt, board edges and inner dentelles also decorated in gilt. Dark green endpapers. Top edge gilt. Vol. I with portrait frontispiece by W. H Watt. A near fine set, the bindings square, firm and bright with just a few very minor marks to the boards, the contents bright, clean, without marks, inscriptions or foxing. A very attractive set.

Stephen Gill, in his magisterial biography of the poet explains how, in 1836, Wordsworth took the bold step of changing publishers, moving away from Longmans to Edward Moxon. On 25th June, the poet signed a declaration stating that "Mr Wordsworth... considers Mr Moxon as entitled to especial consideration in preference to other Publishers [for] any future edition which may be required of his works". Gill points out that "Moxon, himself a poet, was poet-struck and [...] determined to build up a publishing house that would be worthy of the Muse […], he accompanied Wordsworth to Paris in 1837, visited him in the Lakes, entertained him, and undertook little commissions, such as getting his spectacles and false teeth mended in London". Wordsworth soon put Moxon to the test. For this six-volume edition, first issued in 1836-7, he revised the poems thoroughly, "creat[ing] new versions of several poems, substantial revised versions of a hundred more, and pervasive changes in the details of presentation that alter dramatically their appearance before the reader's eye […] As he had been since 1800, so Wordsworth remained, a printer's nightmare." This 1843 reprint of the 1836-7 six-volume collected edition is supplemented with a seventh volume consisting of 'Poems, Chiefly of Early and Late Years' (1842), Wordsworth's final discretely published volume. This version, correctly dated 1842, is published as Vol VII of 'The Poetical Works'. (Stephen Gill, 'Wordsworth: A Life' [1989]).