William Wordsworth’s autobiographical poem “The Prelude” was first published in its complete form in 1850.
Wordsworth began writing the poem in 1798, when he was 28, and revised it throughout his life. He intended it as a prelude to The Recluse, a vast philosophical and poetic project planned with Samuel Taylor Coleridge but never completed as originally imagined.
The 1850 edition appeared three months after Wordsworth’s death. It contained 14 books and was published by his widow, Mary Wordsworth, who also supplied the title. Wordsworth himself had referred to the manuscript in letters as a poem addressed to Coleridge rather than using its later title.
Readers sometimes choose 1805 because that is the date of a major earlier version in 13 books. A two-part version was also composed in 1798–1799. Those dates identify earlier forms, not the first publication of the complete 14-book version.