Book excerpt: The Lives of Uneducated Poets, written by Robert Southey and published in 1831, unites several poets under the ‘uneducated’ banner, being the first to identify them as a group and claiming their their writing was worth consideration as that of a class. The book's foundational role contributes to the current interest in labouring-class/self-educated poetry and nineteenth-century history and culture. Accompanied by a new introduction written by Southey scholar Tim Fulford, this title will be of great interest to students and scholars of Literary History.