1798 is a significant date in literary history: in that year the Lyrical
Ballads were published anonymously by Joseph Cottle, the Bristol
bookseller. But this is a volume not about the Lyrical Ballads, but
about their year. It is an attempt to re-create and examine the literary
culture of 1798, the culture on which Wordsworth and Coleridge decided
to make their 'experiment'. It is a book in which Wordsworth and
Coleridge vie for attention, as they did in 1798, with many other
writers, including Schleiermacher, John Thelwall, Mary Hays, the Abbe
Barruel, Walter Savage Landor, Mary Wollstonecraft, Thomas Malthus,
Joanna Baillie, George Canning, Robert Sothey and the Reverend T.J.
Mathias. The chapters of this book work together to define a single
historical moment that marked the beginning of romanticism in England.