Thompson galvanized audiences in New York and in England with his unique blend of historical analysis and literary acuity as he examined the turbulent 1790s through the work of Wordsworth, Coleridge, Mary Wollstonecraft, and that of such less well-known authors as William Godwin and John Thelwall.

Prepared for publication by his widow, Dorothy Thompson, The Romantics contains all of E. P. Thompson's original texts and notes, as well as an overview of the ideas behind his study of the period.

Combining a historian's intimate knowledge of contemporary politics with a close and sympathetic reading of the writings themselves, Thompson traces the intellectual influences that gave rise to the English Romantic movement, and examines the societal pressures - paternalism, authoritarianism, respect for tradition, and the French Revolution - that informed it.