IntroductionWordsworth, William, 1770–1850, English poet, b. Cockermouth, Cumberland. One of the great English poets, he was a leader of the romantic movement in England.
Wordsworth's sister, Dorothy Wordsworth, 1771–1855, is known principally for her poems and for her journals, which have proved invaluable for later biographies and studies of the poet. These journals, the first of which was started in 1798, are written in delicate, exquisite diction, and describe the Wordsworth household, friends, and travels. For the last 20 years of her life Dorothy Wordsworth was an invalid, suffering from an obscure illness that made her prematurely senile.
See her journals, ed. by H. Darbishire (2 vol., 1958; rev. ed. 1971, ed. by M. Moorman, repr. 1991); biography by E. de Selincourt (1933); A. M. Ellis, Rebels and Conservatives: Dorothy and William Wordsworth and Their Circle (1967); E. Hardwick, Seduction and Betrayal (1974); F. Wilson, The Ballad of Dorothy Wordsworth (2009).
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