A major and highly controversial personage in his own day, Robert Southey has until recently been the forgotten member of the Lake School. This is the first edited volume devoted to the multiple connections between Southey and English Romantic culture, politics, and history. Individual essays explore the significance of Southey's writing, his ability to complicate and reconfigure traditional versions of English Romanticism, and his importance for the construction of nineteenth-century ideologies of empire.

This edition of Robert Southey's early poetry seeks to restore Southey the poet to his place at the centre of late 18th and early 19th century British literary culture. This collection of his poetical works critically reassesses Southey's epics and romances.

Central to any reappraisal of Southey’s mid to late career, is 'Roderick'. This best-selling epic romance has not been republished since 1838 and is contextualised here within Southey’s wider oeuvre. The four-volume edition also benefits from a general introduction, volume introductions, textual variants, endnotes and a consolidated index.