Dorothy Wordsworth Biography and List of Works

English prose writer, the younger sister of poet William Wordsworth, famous for her diaries and 'recollections'. Several of Dorothy Wordsworth's own poems were included in various editions of her brother's poetical works. She published nothing during her lifetime, and spent the last twenty-five years struggling against physical and mental illness.

"She did not cultivate the graces which preside over the person and its carriage. But, on the other hand, she was a person of very remarkable endowments intellectually..."
(Thomas De Quincey in Reminiscences of the Lake Poets, 1961)

Dorothy Wordsworth was born in Cockermouth, Cumberland. After her parents died she spent her childhood with various relatives. She began writing in about 1795 when she and her brother William shared a house in Dorset.

At Alfoxden, Somerset, she became friends with the poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge, and travelled with him and her brother in Germany (1798-99). In Alfoxden she started her first journal, and then kept several other journals of travels and expeditions. Her thoughts and writings were an important source of stimulation for Coleridge and her brother, who were 'as three person with one soul,' as Coleridge expressed their relationship.

"I should detest the idea of setting myself up as an author."

In 1799 Wordsworth settled with his brother in Dove Cottage, Grasmere, in the Lake District. When Thomas De Quincey met William there in 1807, he also made the acquaintance of Dorothy. According to De Quincey, her face was of Egyptian brown, "rarely, in a woman of English birth, had I seen a more determinate gipsy tan. Her eyes were not soft, as Mrs. Wordsworth's, nor were they fierce or bold; but they were wild and startling, and hurried in their motion." She remained in Dove Cottage until 1808, when she moved with her family to Rydal. In 1829 she became ill and was obliged to lead the life of an invalid. From 1835 she developed arteriosclerosis and for the remaining 20 years she suffered from mental problems. Wordsworth died in Rydal on January 25. 1855.

Dorothy Wordsworth began her journal in the late 1790s, recording walks, visits, conversations and above all the natural world. Her ALFOXDEN JOURNAL 1798 and GRASMERE JOURNALS 1800-03 were published posthumously. Among her other works are VISIT TO HAMBURGH AND A JOURNEY TO ... GOSLAR 1798-99, the memoir RECOLLECTIONS OF A TOUR MADE IN SCOTLAND (1804), JOURNAL OF A TOUR MADE IN SCOTLAND (1803), AN EXCURSION ON THE BANKS OF ULLSWATER 1805, JOURNAL OF A TOUR ON THE CONTINENT (1820), which includes her irritated views of William on their journey in Switzerland, AN EXCURSION UP SCAWFELL PIKE (1818), and JOURNAL OF A TOUR IN THE ISLE OF MAN (1828).

For further reading: Reminiscences of the English Lake Poets by Thomas De Quincey (1907); Journals of Dorothy Wordsworth, ed. by E. de Sélincourt (1933); Three Women Diarists by M. Willy (1963); Rebels and Conservatives by A.M. Ellis (1968); Dorothy Wordsworth by Robert Gittings (1985); The Poetry of Relationship by Richard E. Matlak (1997)

RECOLLECTIONS OF A TOUR IN SCOTLAND, (1804)