Beginning with an account of a late Victorian collection of Wordsworth’s poems, and the paper and botanical ephemera that were included in a copy of this edition, the introduction assesses Wordsworth’s daisy poems to pave the way for a broader discussion of the poet’s early interest in the poetics and politics of peace and how this interest was modified over the course of his career. Works examined in the Introduction include sonnets composed during the Peace of Amiens (1802–1803) and the ‘Immortality Ode’ from Poems, in Two Volumes (1807). The Introduction locates Wordsworth’s poetry on peace and war within the broader social, cultural, and political contexts of the period and also outlines the book’s conceptual framework.

The origins of even familiar objects are frequently mired in mystery. The violin is one such example. Nevertheless, we have recently learned much more about the evolution of the violin over time – specifically, its overall shape and the length of its twin sound-holes. The research yielding this increased understanding focused on the makers of the violin, its so-called luthiers, thus putting behavior prominently into the spotlight. Each of the two studies under consideration proposed provocative parallels between structural changes in the violin and the Law of Natural Selection. But, the more appropriate analysis rests on the Law of Effect shaping the behavior of the luthiers. What is revealed is, first, that increasing the length of the sound-holes amplified the acoustic power of the violin, thus leading luthiers to lengthen the sound-holes; and, second, that the aesthetic tastes of their customers led luthiers to modify the overall shapes of their violins.