Dorothy Wellesley

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DW , writing in the earlier twentieth century, published a dozen volumes of poetry. She was also an editor of contemporary poetry, a letter-writer, critic, biographer and autobiographer. Her association first with the Hogarth Press and later with W. B. Yeats helped to give her a high profile. Her poetry typically looks back from the modern world, either to ancient history and prehistory, or to her own childhood. She voices a strong feeling for the natural world and a philosophic questioning about origins and principles.

Milestones

30 July 1889
Dorothy Violet Ashton (later DW ) was born at Heywood Lodge at White Waltham in Berkshire, the only daughter of her parents' marriage, and the eldest of her mother's children.
Matthew, Henry Colin Gray, Brian Harrison, and Lawrence Goldman, editors. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography.
1925
DW 's poetry volume Lost Lane included what became one of her most famous poems, Horses.
Wellesley, Dorothy, and W. B. Yeats. Selections from the Poems of Dorothy Wellesley. Macmillan, 1936.
17
By October 1955
DW published Early Light, a collection of her poems which she intended to embody everything that she wished to preserve.
Dated from the Bodleian Library acquisition stamp.
British Library Catalogue.
11 July 1956
DW died, a few years short of seventy, at her home at Penns in the Rocks at Withyham.
Matthew, Henry Colin Gray, Brian Harrison, and Lawrence Goldman, editors. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography.
“The Times Digital Archive 1785-2007”. Thompson Gale: The Times Digital Archive.
(12 July 1956): 13

Biography

Birth and Family

30 July 1889
Dorothy Violet Ashton (later DW ) was born at Heywood Lodge at White Waltham in Berkshire, the only daughter of her parents' marriage, and the eldest of her mother's children.
Matthew, Henry Colin Gray, Brian Harrison, and Lawrence Goldman, editors. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography.