Dorothy Wordsworth (Oxford Lives S.)

by Robert Gittings (Author), Jo Manton (Author)

• Used

  Paperback
  1988

  $4.06

  Gittings and Manton offer the first biography of Dorothy Wordsworth that treats her as a person in her own right, rather than as an adjunct to her brother or to Coleridge. Her devotion to family and friends is well known, but she was also a woman of problems and contradictions often connected with the changing social and political climate of her time. From the authors' examination of her uncertain health and the nature of her final breakdown, she emerges as more strange and wayward than convention has portrayed.

• Used

  Hardcover
  1985

  $4.51

  Critics and biographers have too often regarded Dorothy Wordsworth as a mere adjunct to her brother William, or to their mutual friend Samuel Coleridge. The importance of her famous Journals and other writings, it is usually assumed, lies in what they tell us of those poets and their work. This thoughtful, compelling biography is the first book to treat Dorothy Wordsworth as a person in her own right. Drawing on the Journals, her newly re-edited Letters, and later diary material not yet published, the authors give us a portait of a woman more strange yet touchingly human than any previous account has offered. Their interest in her does not stop at the literary but goes deeper to explore other facets of her character. They focus especially on her intense familial and domestic devotion, showing us how, from early childhood, she extended her warmth and selflessness to anyone who seemed to need her--a trait that tells us much about her particular intimate attachment to her brother. The book fully explores her relationship with William--their life in the Lake District, their travels together, her influence on how he came to view nature--and also examines the effects upon Dorothy of a changing social and political climate. It delves into her problems, weaknesses, and contradictions and illuminates the nature of her tragic nervous breakdown, which virtually incapacitated her for the last 25 years of her life. As a revealing picture of a woman of the early nineteenth century, Dorothy Wordsworth has an appeal extending well beyond just those readers interested in the Romantic Period. About the Author: Robert Gittings has written acclaimed biographies of Keats and Hardy. Jo Manton is the author of Elizabeth Barrett Anderson and Sister Dora. Husband and wife, they have previously collaborated on The Story of John Keats and The Second Mrs. Hardy.