The Pleasures of Imagination was first published in 1744: many editions followed, continuing to appear long after Akenside's death in 1771. The poem was to exercise a significant influence both upon Coleridge's thinking at an especially formative period, and upon Wordsworth's style as he began the prelude in 1798. This reissue of 1795 is introduced by the Unitarian poet Anna Laetitia Barbauld, Coleridge's predecessor as a follower of Joseph Priestly.