John Worthen - The Life of William Wordsworth

Blackwell Critical Biographies

General Editor: Claude Rawson

This acclaimed series offers informative and durable biographies of important authors, British, European, and North American, which will include substantial critical discussion of their works. An underlying objective is to re-establish the notion that books are written by people who lived in particular times and places. This objective is pursued not by programmatic assertions or strenuous point-making, but through the practical persuasion of volumes which offer intelligent criticism within a well-researched biographical context.

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This edition first published 2014

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Worthen, John.

The life of William Wordsworth : a critical biography / John Worthen.

pages cm

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 978-0-470-65544-3 (cloth)

1. Wordsworth, William, 1770-1850. 2. Poets, English 19th century Biography. I. Title.

PR5881.W75 2014

821.7 dc23

[B]

2013039715

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

Cover image: Portrait of Wordsworth by Benjamin Haydon, pencil drawing, c. 1815. By permission of The Wordsworth Trust, Grasmere

Cover design by Nicki Averill Design & Illustration

For Linda Bree

Epigraph

On the village Silence sets her sealAnd in the glimmering vale the last lights dieThe kine obscurely seen before me lieRound the dim horse that crops his later mealScarce heard a timely slumber seems to stealOer vale and mountain now while ear & eyeAlike are vacant what strange harmonyHomefelt and homecreated seems to healThat grief for which my senses still supplyFresh food

(Written in very early Youth, P2V3245:110)

List of Illustrations

Acknowledgments

I want to thank Claude Rawson not only for asking me to write this book, but for waiting eleven years and then asking me again; and finally in assisting me to make a better book of it. At the press, Emma Bennett, Bridget Jennings, Leanda Shrimpton, and Ben Thatcher have taken the best possible care of my work; Brigitte Lee Messenger has been a splendid copy-editor.

Jeff Cowton and the staff at the Jerwood Centre at Grasmere could not have been more helpful in locating and explaining materials; Jeff assisted me in every way that he (and he incomparably) could, and I am also very grateful to Beccy Turner. Jane Sparkes took great care of me and of my illustrations, while John Coombe, Catherine Kay, and Carrie Taylor always made me feel welcome, as did the generations of volunteers I met on my visits. I am also grateful to the staff at the Cumbrian Archives in Carlisle, to Sarah Woodcock and the staff at Allan Bank, and for the help given me by the staff of the Archives Dpartementales de Loir-et-Cher in Blois.