Dorothy Wordsworth

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Standard Name: Wordsworth, Dorothy
Birth Name: Dorothy Wordsworth
DW is chiefly remembered for her Romantic-period journals, especially for her descriptions of the detail of nature, landscape, growth, and seasonal change. The journals, however, are equally remarkable for observing the doings of people: both the precise circumstances and the personal pleasures of the rural poor and vagrants. DW was also a travel writer, and interest has been growing in her thirty or so very interesting poems extant. Besides writing these poems, she exerted profound if unquantifiable influence on the poetry of her brother William .
Image of Dorothy Wordsworth from a painting by S. Crosthwaite, 1833, at Rydal Mount, Cumbria (home of herself and her brother's family during all of her later life). All that can be clearly seen of her clothing is a cap with ruffled edges and a large bow, and a scarf or shawl. She looks directly at the viewer. The lower part of the portrait, not visible here, shows spectacles and an open manuscript book on her lap and a little white dog at her feet.

Connections

Connections Author name Excerpt
Family and Intimate relationships William Wordsworth
William was very close to his sister, Dorothy . They were separated in childhood following their mother's death, but reunited in 1794 to spend the rest of their lives together. Dorothy was immeasurably important to...
Family and Intimate relationships Violet Hunt
VH 's mother was the writer Margaret (Raine) Hunt , born on 14 October 1831. Her childhood home, Crook Hall in County Durham, was visited by Dorothy and William Wordsworth , John Ruskin ...
Family and Intimate relationships William Wordsworth
Throughout his marriage and his career WW shared his home with his sister Dorothy .
Family and Intimate relationships Anne Ridler
Anne Bradby (later AR ) was still at school when she first met Charles Williams , the poet, Christian apologist, novelist, playwright and essayist, who was a friend of her headmistress, and came to lecture...
Friends, Associates Dora Greenwell
Among DG 's other writer friends were Elizabeth Charles , Margaret Hunt , and Sarah Tytler .
Marsh, Jan. Christina Rossetti: A Writer’s Life. Viking.
297-8, 429
Bett, Henry. Dora Greenwell. Epworth Press.
18-20, 22
Gray, Janet. “Dora Greenwell’s Commonplace Book”. Princeton University Library Chronicle, Vol.
57
, No. 1, pp. 47-74.
50, 51
Gray, Janet. “The Sewing Contest: Christina Rossetti and the Other Women”. A/B: Auto/Biography Studies, Vol.
8
, No. 2, pp. 233-57.
240
Hickok, Kathleen. Representations of Women: Nineteenth-Century British Women’s Poetry. Greenwood Press.
215
She was also acquainted with Longfellow , William Bell Scott
Friends, Associates William Hazlitt
The direction of WH 's life was shaped by his early meeting with Samuel Taylor Coleridge , and through him with William and Dorothy Wordsworth .
Friends, Associates Helen Maria Williams
On her return to Paris after Robespierre's death, HMW and Stone lived in a house (where she held her salon) on the Quai Malaquais. After peace was announced between England and France in 1801...
Friends, Associates Sara Coleridge
Her playmates included Edith Southey and Dora Wordsworth .
Mudge, Bradford Keyes, and Sara Coleridge. Sara Coleridge, a Victorian Daughter: Her Life and Essays. Yale University Press.
25
William Wordsworth 's poem The Triad describes these three young girls.
Commire, Anne, and Deborah Klezmer, editors. Women in World History: A Biographical Encyclopedia. Yorkin Publications.
Friends, Associates Sara Coleridge
Among women writers, in addition to Dorothy Wordsworth , Joanna Baillie , and Maria Jane Jewsbury , SC also knew Elizabeth Barrett Browning , Anna Jameson , Elizabeth Rigby , Elizabeth Gaskell , and Harriet Martineau
Friends, Associates Maria Jane Jewsbury
During MJJ 's visit to Rydal Mount, she rode ponies through the nearby mountains while listening to Wordsworth recite poetry. Sometimes during these excursions, she received freshly picked nosegays from the celebrated poet. Later...
Friends, Associates Samuel Taylor Coleridge
A Christian and political radical, STC associated with William Godwin and Robert Southey . William Wordsworth wrote of him on 21 March 1796, I saw but little of him. I wished indeed to have seen...
Friends, Associates Thomas De Quincey
It seems that the Wordsworth family (William , Mary , and Dorothy ) were more troubled about the marriage than about the sexual relation that preceded it. De Quincey evidently forgave Dorothy Wordsworth (who...
Friends, Associates Mary Lamb
ML 's friends (many of them made through Charles) included Eliza Fenwick (whose husband and Charles drank together), Henry Crabb Robinson , and many more canonical members of the Romantic movement. Charles was close to...
Friends, Associates Eliza Fenwick
Other more or less radical friends of EF included Thomas Holcroft , Anne Plumptre , Elizabeth Benger , Jane Porter , Henry Crabb Robinson , Charles and Mary Lamb , and their friend Sarah Stoddart
Health William Wordsworth
Compelled to return from France by lack of funds, he seems to have undergone some kind of emotional breakdown whose repercussions lasted more than a year, and from which he later felt his sister Dorothy

Timeline

15 April 1802: Dorothy Wordsworth recorded in her diary...

Writing climate item

15 April 1802

Dorothy Wordsworth recorded in her diary how she and her brother , out walking, came on a mass of wild daffodils in bloom at the edge of a lake.

3 September 1802: William Wordsworth composed his well-known...

Writing climate item

3 September 1802

William Wordsworth composed his well-known sonnetUpon Westminster Bridge, responding to the power of the city, as well as countryside or wilderness, to arouse transcendent feelings.

From April 1810: The Rev. Joseph Wilkinson's Select Views...

Writing climate item

From April 1810

The Rev. Joseph Wilkinson 's Select Views in Cumberland, Westmorland, and Lancashire appeared in instalments, containing William Wordsworth 's introductory Description of the Scenery of the English Lakes and later text.

10 September 2003: Guardian Unlimited Books named as Site of...

Writing climate item

10 September 2003

Guardian Unlimited Books named as Site of the Week a website entitled Poetry Landmarks of Britain: a map of poetic assocations plotted on an interactive map of Britain, searchable by region or category.

Texts

Wordsworth, Dorothy. George & Sarah Green. Editor Selincourt, Ernest De, Clarendon, 1936.
Wordsworth, Dorothy. Journals of Dorothy Wordsworth. Editor Knight, William Angus, Macmillan, 1897.
Wordsworth, Dorothy. Journals of Dorothy Wordsworth. Editor Selincourt, Ernest De, Macmillan, 1941.
Wordsworth, Dorothy, and William Wordsworth. Journals of Dorothy Wordsworth: The Alfoxden Journal 1798; The Grasmere Journals 1800-1803. Editor Darbishire, Helen, Oxford University Press, 1958.
Wordsworth, Dorothy, and Helen Darbishire. Journals of Dorothy Wordsworth: The Alfoxden Journal 1798; The Grasmere Journals 1800-1803. Editor Moorman, Mary, Oxford University Press, 1971.
Wordsworth, Dorothy. “Preface”. Journals of Dorothy Wordsworth, edited by Ernest De Selincourt, Macmillan, 1941, p. 1: v - xix.
Wordsworth, Dorothy. Recollections of a Tour made in Scotland. Editor Shairp, John Campbell, Edmonston and Douglas, 1874.
Wordsworth, Dorothy. The Grasmere Journals. Editor Woof, Pamela, Oxford University Press, 1993.
Wordsworth, William et al. The Letters of William and Dorothy Wordsworth. Editors Selincourt, Ernest De et al., Clarendon, 1993.
Wordsworth, William, and Dorothy Wordsworth. The Letters of William and Dorothy Wordsworth. The Later Years. Editor Selincourt, Ernest De, Clarendon Press, 1939.