Title continues: Author of "Cumberland Ballads," &c. To which is prefixed the Life of the Author, Written by Himself. An Essay on the Characters, Manners, and Customs of the Peasantry of Cumberland; and Observations on the Style and Genius of the Author, by Thomas Sanderson." Robert Anderson (17701833) was an English labouring class poet from Carlisle, best known for his ballad-style poems in Cumbrian dialect. This edition of his poems, for which he included an autobiographical essay, was published in his home town in 1820. This edition attracted over 1000 subscribers, among them the then poet laureate, Robert Southey, and Southey's successor, William Wordsworth, whose names appear in the subscribers' list at the end of vol. II. Anderson's poem "Lucy Gray" was the origin of Wordsworth's poems about the same character.
