William Wordsworth

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Standard Name: Wordsworth, William
Three-quarter-length painting of William Wordsworth by Benjamin Robert Haydon, 1842, known as "Wordsworth on Helvellyn" (though it was painted in London, with the mountain scene done from memory). Haydon was responding to a poem Wordsworth wrote for him; Elizabeth Barrett (later Browning), alerted by Mary Russell Mitford, wrote a poem about the painting. Wordsworth stands tall, arms folded and gazing downwards, showing his beaky face and bald head framed in remaining white hair and sideburns. National Portr

Connections

Connections Author name Excerpt
Anthologization L. E. L.
LEL's poetry was included in Christian Isobel Johnstone 's 1842 Rational Reading Lessons for children, and in 1879 in Louisa Anne Meredith 's Our Island Home, A Tasmanian Sketch Book, alongside other work by...
Characters E. H. Young
Quite unlike her later books, this one features a solitary heroine who takes a Wordsworth ian delight in nature.
Mezei, Kathy, and Chiara Briganti. “’She must be a very good novelist’: Rereading E. H. Young (1880-1949)”. English Studies in Canada, Vol.
27
, No. 3, Sept. 2001, pp. 303-31.
314
Dedications Maria Jane Jewsbury
The editor of the Manchester Courier, Alaric Watts , encouraged her to compile a volume of her writing and persuaded Hurst and Robinson to publish the result, this book. She received £100 for Phantasmagoria...
Dedications Sara Coleridge
This work had been begun by SC 's husband, Henry Nelson Coleridge , but she completed it after his early death.
British Library Catalogue. http://explore.bl.uk/primo_library/libweb/action/search.do?dscnt=0&tab=local_tab&dstmp=1489778087340&vid=BLVU1&mode=Basic&fromLo.
She dedicated this edition to Wordsworth (with his slightly reluctant permission), as his Child...
Dedications Felicia Hemans
National Lyrics, which collected many of the lyrics FH had written for her sister and for composers, was dedicated to her friend Rose Lawrence , and Scenes to Wordsworth .
“Dictionary of Literary Biography online”. Gale Databases: Literature Resource Center-LRC.
96
Hemans, Felicia. “Introduction and Editorial Materials”. Felicia Hemans: Selected Poems, Prose, and Letters, edited by Gary Kelly, Broadview, 2002, pp. 12 - 89; various pages.
89
Dedications Louisa Anne Meredith
Louisa Anne Twamley (later LAM ) followed her Poems with several more books of verse on botanical themes. First came The Romance of Nature; or, The Flower Seasons, 1836, which again combines verse (about...
Education Freya Stark
Family friends sympathetic to Freya's feelings of entrapment at Dronero sent her gifts of books: she was especially passionate about Shakespeare , Sir Walter Scott , Byron , Keats , Kipling , Shelley , Wordsworth
Education Florence Dixie
Lady Florence was at first educated at home in Scotland. After a first, unsuccessful attempt to place her in a convent she had, in France, an Irish Catholic governess whom she calls Miss O'Leary...
Education Nina Bawden
NB wanted to leave school to be a war correspondent, but a strong-minded aunt persuaded her to try for Somerville College, Oxford. In the general paper of the entrance exam, she wrote on the future...
Education Anna Mary Howitt
Until her mid-teens, AMH moved freely in the literary atmosphere surrounding her parents. William Wordsworth gave her a copy of a selection of his poems that had been chosen for children. When her parents brought...
Education John Ruskin
Taught at home until the age of fourteen by his parents and private tutors, JR developed his drawing, and received an education that encouraged a love of Romantic Literature (including Byron , Wordsworth , and...
Education Meiling Jin
She was saved by the public Children's Library. She read omnivorously, beginning with the Dr Doolittle books (Hugh Lofting ) and fairy stories but missing out on Enid Blyton (who was kept locked away)...
Education Una Marson
UM 's favourite subject was English literature. She particularly loved Wordsworth , who inspired her to resolve not . . . to be a good wage earner, but enjoy plain living and high thinking and...
Education Anna Swanwick
At home her mother had read to her daughters, while they sewed, Greek and Roman history, and writers like Pope , and Cowper . At four Anna could recite long passages from Milton 's L'Allegro...
Education Jean Ingelow
In later years she expanded her reading to include Shakespeare , Southey , Scott , Wordsworth , and Tennyson . She also read Henry Drummond 's Natural Law in the Spiritual World and hisTropical Africa and Charles Lamb 's Letters.
Some Recollections of Jean Ingelow and Her Early Friends. Kennikat Press, 1972.
150-1
British Library Catalogue. http://explore.bl.uk/primo_library/libweb/action/search.do?dscnt=0&tab=local_tab&dstmp=1489778087340&vid=BLVU1&mode=Basic&fromLo.
Peters, Maureen. Jean Ingelow: Victorian Poetess. Boydell, 1972.
23

Timeline

1775: The first, posthumous, printing of Thomas...

Writing climate item

1775

The first, posthumous, printing of Thomas Gray 's sonnet on the death of Richard West caused a literary sensation; it laid the foundation for Charlotte Smith 's Elegiac Sonnets, 1784, and the revival of the sonnet form.
Curran, Stuart. “Reading with Both Hands: The Dialog of Novelist and Poet”. American Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies (ASECS) Conference, Boston, MA, 27 Mar. 2004.

1791: William Gifford, in his satire The Baviad,...

Writing climate item

1791

William Gifford , in his satire The Baviad, became the first to attack the Della Cruscan body of poetry which notably included work by Robert Merry and Hannah Cowley .
McGann, Jerome. The Poetics of Sensibility: A Revolution in Literary Style. Clarendon, 1996.
74ff

29 January 1793: William Wordsworth published two early poems,...

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29 January 1793

William Wordsworth published two early poems, An Evening Walk and Descriptive Sketches.
Maxwell, James Coutts, and William Wordsworth. “Table of Dates”. The Prelude, Penguin, 1971, pp. 7-15.
8

Early 1798 to May 1805: William Wordsworth composed the early version...

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Early 1798 to May 1805

William Wordsworth composed the early version of what became The Prelude, as a distraction from the effort of working at his unrealised great poem.
Maxwell, James Coutts, and William Wordsworth. “Table of Dates”. The Prelude, Penguin, 1971, pp. 7-15.
8, 10
Barrell, John. “To Stir up the People”. London Review of Books, Vol.
36
, No. 2, 23 Jan. 2014, pp. 17-19.
19

4 October 1798: Wordsworth and Coleridge published at Bristol...

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4 October 1798

Wordsworth and Coleridge published at Bristol the first edition of their epoch-making poetry collection Lyrical Ballads.
Moorman, Mary. William Wordsworth: A Biography. Clarendon Press, 1957–1965, 2 vols.
1: 409, 370, 401-2
Matthew, Henry Colin Gray et al., editors. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. http://www.oxforddnb.com/.
under William Wordsworth

About 25 January 1801: The second edition of Lyrical Ballads appeared,...

Writing climate item

About 25 January 1801

The second edition of Lyrical Ballads appeared, in two volumes, including along with its poems by Wordsworth and Coleridge the former's famous Preface, written in 1800.
Moorman, Mary. William Wordsworth: A Biography. Clarendon Press, 1957–1965, 2 vols.
1: 501

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.
Wordsworth, Dorothy. The Grasmere Journals. Editor Woof, Pamela, Oxford University Press, 1993.
85

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

Writing climate item

3 September 1802

William Wordsworth composed his well-known sonnet Upon Westminster Bridge, responding to the power of the city, as well as countryside or wilderness, to arouse transcendent feelings.
Tollet, Elizabeth. Poems on Several Occasions. J. Clarke, 1755.
152
Purkis, John. A Preface to Wordsworth. Scribner, 1970.
192

Probably early May 1807: William Wordsworth published Poems in Two...

Writing climate item

Probably early May 1807

William Wordsworth published Poems in Two Volumes; the Critical Review commented unkindly: A silly book is a serious evil; but it becomes absolutely insupportable when written by a man of sense.
Critical Review. W. Simpkin and R. Marshall, 5 series.
3d ser. 11 (1807): 399

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

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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.
Moorman, Mary. William Wordsworth: A Biography. Clarendon Press, 1957–1965, 2 vols.
2: 158-9

Probably August 1814: William Wordsworth published his poem The...

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Probably August 1814

William Wordsworth published his poem The Excursion.
Moorman, Mary. William Wordsworth: A Biography. Clarendon Press, 1957–1965, 2 vols.
2: 260

March 1815: William Wordsworth published his Miscellaneous...

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March 1815

William Wordsworth published his Miscellaneous Poems in two volumes; a third volume was added in 1820.
Moorman, Mary. William Wordsworth: A Biography. Clarendon Press, 1957–1965, 2 vols.
2: 269

28 December 1817: The painter Benjamin Haydon held what later...

Writing climate item

28 December 1817

The painter Benjamin Haydon held what later became known as the immortal dinner so that the young John Keats might meet the eminent William Wordsworth .
Burton, Sarah. A Double Life: A Biography of Charles and Mary Lamb. Viking, 2003.
288-93

Early 1818: William Hazlitt opened On the Living Poets,...

Writing climate item

Early 1818

William Hazlitt opened On the Living Poets, the last of his Lectures on the English Poets, with a statement on gender issues.
Chandler, James. England in 1819: The Politics of Literary Culture and the Case of Romantic Historicism. University of Chicago Press, 1998.
112

Christmas 1819: William Wordsworth presented Lady Mary Lowther...

Women writers item

Christmas 1819

William Wordsworth presented Lady Mary Lowther with a little manuscript volume of poems: those by women were mostly copied from the pages of Poems by Eminent Ladies.
Lavoie, Chantel Michelle. Poems by Eminent Ladies: A Study of an Eighteenth-Century Anthology. University of Toronto, 1999.
288
Wordsworth, William, and Anne Finch. Poems and Extracts Chosen by William Wordsworth for an Album presented to Lady Mary Lowther, Christmas 1819. Editor Littledale, Harold, H. Frowde, 1905.

Texts

Wordsworth, William. An Evening Walk. J. Johnson, 1793.
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, William, and Samuel Taylor Coleridge. Lyrical Ballads. T. N. Longman, 1798.
Wordsworth, William, and Anne Finch. Poems and Extracts Chosen by William Wordsworth for an Album presented to Lady Mary Lowther, Christmas 1819. Editor Littledale, Harold, H. Frowde, 1905.
Wordsworth, William. Poems, in Two Volumes. Longman, Hurst, Rees, and Orme, 1807, 2 vols.
Maxwell, James Coutts, and William Wordsworth. “Table of Dates”. The Prelude, Penguin, 1971, pp. 7-15.
Wordsworth, William. The Complete Poetical Works of Wordsworth. Editor George, Andrew J., Houghton Mifflin, 1932.
Wordsworth, William. The Excursion. Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, and Brown, 1814.
Wordsworth, William et al. The Letters of William and Dorothy Wordsworth. Editors Selincourt, Ernest De et al., Clarendon, 1993, 8 vols.
Wordsworth, William, and Dorothy Wordsworth. The Letters of William and Dorothy Wordsworth. The Later Years. Editor Selincourt, Ernest De, Clarendon Press, 1939, 3 vols.
Wordsworth, William. The Miscellaneous Poems of William Wordsworth. Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, and Brown, 1820, 4 vols.
Wordsworth, William. The Prelude. E. Moxon, 1850.