The editors wish to thank Kevin Taylor of the Cambridge University Press for backing this project from its inception and for helping to define its boundaries. We also thank Peter Robinson of Oxford and de Montfort University for introducing us to the techniques of computer-assisted scholarly editing, and for developing his Collate program which we put to good use in comparing our texts. A special debt of gratitude is owed to Simon Fraser University, and especially to Gene Bridwell, Rare Books Librarian there, for sharing with us the rich holdings in their Wordsworth collection and allowing photographs to be taken of their copies of the first through fourth editions of Lyrical Ballads.

There are many other libraries whose support we are also grateful to acknowledge: the Firestone Library of Princeton University, where most of the initial transcriptions were made; the Wordsworth Library, Grasmere, and especially Jeff Cowton and Robert Woof, who always welcomed us warmly; the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University; the Robert Frost Library of Amherst College; the Rauner Special Collections Library, Dartmouth College, and especially Philip Cronenwett, its director; McCabe Library, Swarthmore College; the University of Colorado Library; the Houghton Library, Harvard University; the British Library; the Berg Collection of the New York Public Library; the Wordsworth Collection of Olin Library, Cornell University; the Master and Fellows of Trinity College, Cambridge University, and its librarian, David McKitterick; and lastly, the Master and Fellows of St. John's College, Cambridge University, Wordsworth's college.

Our edition would also not have been possible without the aid of many scholars. First, for technological assistance and the opportunity of sharing our thoughts with some of the finest minds in humanities computing, we thank Allen Renear, Elli Mylonas, and other past and present members of the Scholarly Technology Group, Brown University. Secondly, without the example of the Cornell Wordsworth before us and the encouragement and generous support of every member of its editorial board, this electronic edition would never have come into being. To Stephen M. Parrish, Mark L. Reed, James Butler, and Jared Curtis we owe whatever is good and useful in this edition. Thanks also is due to Paul Betz, Paul Bienvenue, Jill Heydt-Stevenson, Heather Jackson, Willard McCarty, Joel Pace and Wendell Piez for various kinds of advice and support. And we are grateful to Neil Fraistat and his colleagues at Romantic Circles for making it possible to disseminate our work on the WWW. Special thanks are due to Lisa Rhody and Joseph Byrne, site managers at Romantic Circles, for all their work in improving the design and layout of this edition, and to Charles Goldman, Office of Information Technology, University of Maryland, for his invaluable work in adapting our scripts to the Maryland system.

Financial support for this edition has been provided by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada in the form of a three-year research grant. We also thank the American Philosophical Society for a substantial grant-in-aid. Indispensable support for this project in the form of equipment, server space, and human resources has been provided by Dalhousie University and particularly by its division of Academic Computing Services. We are most grateful to all these institutions.

Finally, none of this work could have been undertaken without the resourcefulness, good humour, and technical genius of Vivien Hannon, Academic Computing Services, Dalhousie University; we thank her warmly.