English literature and their emergence is marked by the first romantic manifesto in English literature, the "Preface" to "Lyrical Ballads" (1798). The poems in "Lyrical Ballads" were mostly by Wordsworth, though Coleridge contributed "Rime of the Ancient Mariner". Among Wordsworth's most important poems are "Lines Composed a Few Miles Above Tintern Abbey", "Resolution and Independence", "" and the autobiographical epic "The Prelude". Robert Southey (1774–1843) was another of the so-called "Lake Poets", and Poet Laureate for 30 years, although his fame has been long eclipsed by William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge. Thomas De Quincey (1785–1859) is best known for his "Confessions
William Wordsworth William Wordsworth William Wordsworth (7 April 1770 – 23 April 1850) was a major English Romantic poet who, with Samuel Taylor Coleridge, helped to launch the Romantic Age in English literature with their joint publication "Lyrical Ballads" (1798). Wordsworth's "magnum opus" is generally considered to be "The Prelude", a semi-autobiographical poem of his early years that he revised and expanded a number of times. It was posthumously titled and published, before which it was generally known as "the poem to Coleridge". Wordsworth was Britain's poet laureate from 1843 until his death from pleurisy on 23 April 1850. The second of