Wordsworth vs Penguin vs Collins vs Oxford classics?

Jasmine, my opinion would be as follows:

1.Penguin Classics and Penguin English Library, and Oxford World’s Classics, are desirable for notes explaining historical background, etc. I think Wordsworth doesn’t provide those.

2.I don’t think the choice is so much between Penguin or Oxford World’s Classics, but between books published before, oh, say 1990 or afterwards. I’d go with used copies published before then. After around that time, you’re more likely to run into editorial material reflecting “literary theory.” That tends to get into colonialism, dubious psychology, feminism, deconstruction, etc. These (in my view) diminished the value of university literary studies from the 1970s or so onwards, and were showing up in Penguins and probably Oxfords later. Anyway that’s the way I’d approach this. You might want to look here at Chrons for the thread on Orange Spine Penguins.