Published to commemorate the bicentenary of the second edition of Lyrical Ballads (1800), this collection gathers essays from ten leading British and American scholars to explore the distinctive originality of these famous volumes, and to analyze their lasting influence. With essays in cultural history and biographical reconstruction, as well as close readings of the poems and their leading critics, 1800: The New Lyrical Ballads offers a uniquely comprehensive account of one of the crucial episodes in British Romanticism.