Robert Southey Robert Southey Robert Southey ( or (12 August 1774 – 21 March 1843) was an English poet of the Romantic school, one of the Lake Poets along with William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge, and England's Poet Laureate for 30 years from 1813 until his death in 1843. Although his fame has been eclipsed by that of Wordsworth and Coleridge, his verse still enjoys some popularity. Southey was also a prolific letter writer, literary scholar, essay writer, historian and biographer. His biographies include the life and works of John Bunyan, John Wesley, William Cowper, Oliver Cromwell and Horatio Nelson. The
Recollections of the Lake Poets father to be insightful and generally fair. De Quincey wrote about the figures of the "Lake School," especially Wordsworth and Coleridge, repeatedly throughout his canon. The essays that make up the collection are primarily these (each year links to its corresponding "[year] in poetry" article): After their initial publication, several of the essays appeared in the second volume of "Selections Grave and Gay" (1854), the first British collected edition of De Quincey's works. For that edition, the author edited his essays, trimming some passages but adding others. The essays were reprinted again in a separate volume, as "Recollections of the