The Lake Poets were a group of English poets who all dwelled in the Lake District of England, United Kingdom, in the first half of the nineteenth century.

They were named, only to be uniformly disparaged, by the Edinburgh Review. They are considered part of the Romantic Movement.

The three main figures of what has become known as the Lakes School were William Wordsworth, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, and Robert Southey.

They were associated with several other poets and writers, including Dorothy Wordsworth, Charles Lamb, Mary Lamb, Charles Lloyd, Hartley Coleridge, John Wilson, and Thomas De Quincey.

There was a certain fraction of additional irony involved in the 'School's' awareness by readers, who were motivated, upon reading the poetry, to visit the area, thus helping to destroy, in the mind of Wordsworth at least, the very thing that made the Lakes special.

They were first interpreted derogatorily as the “Lake School” by Francis (afterwards Lord) Jeffrey in The Edinburgh Review in August 1817, and the description “Lakers” was also used in a similar spirit by the poet Lord Byron.