ABSTRACT
Swinburne’s Dedicatory Epistle introducing his Collected Poems of 1904, addressed to Theodore Watts-Dunton, contains his most extended discussion of his own work. The extracts that follow will indicate that he did not forget his critics: the first recalls the reception of Poems and Ballads, and the second is his response to a recurring complaint of bookishness (see the last part of section VI of the Introduction).
