By examining the family and financial circumstances of Wordsworth s early years, this illuminating biography reshapes our understanding of the great Romantic poet s most creative period of life and writing.

List of Illustrations ix Acknowledgments x Abbreviations and Texts xii Foreword: “The Prelude”: A Poem of My Own Life? xvii Part I Early Years 1 1 Versions of Home: 1770–83 3 2 Hawkshead and Esthwaite: 1783–7 18 3 Cambridge: 1787–90 37 4 To the Alps: and What Followed: 1790–1 53 5 Annette Vallon, Michel de Beaupuy, and the Bishop of Llandaff: 1791–3 69 Part II Writer 91 6 Salisbury Plain and its Consequences: 1793–5 93 7 Racedown: 1795–7 113 8 Coleridge and Alfoxton: 1797–8 135 9 Lyrical Ballads: 1798 157 10 Hamburg to the Harz: 1798 173 11 Writing in Goslar: 1798–9 183 12 Sockburn to Grasmere: 1799–1800 198 Part III Town-End 213 13 “Home at Grasmere,” the “Ode,” “Michael”: 1800–1 215 14 Hurting: 1800–1 241 15 Marrying: 1801–2 249 16 Grasmere to Calais and on to Gallow Hill: 1802 265 17 Marriage, First Child, and the Trip to Scotland: 1802–3 284 18 “The Prelude” I: 1804 303 19 “The Prelude” II: 1804–5 315 20 “Elegiac Stanzas,” Poems, in Two Volumes: 1806–7 328 Part IV The Light of Common Day 341 21 “The Recluse” and The Convention of Cintra: 1808–9 343 22 Loss and Grief: 1809–12 356 23 Stamp-officer and Poet of The Excursion: 1812–14 368 24 “What though it be past”: 1814 387 Part V Sketches of Late Years 397 25 Poetry, Family, and Polemic: 1815–18 399 26 Peter Bell and “the ghosts of what they were”: 1819–26 407 27 “The Recluse” and “The Prelude”: 1827–33 418 28 The Past Enshrined: 1834–42 429 29 No Resting Place: 1843–50 439 Afterword 447 Bibliography 451 Index 457

BLACKWELL CRITICAL BIOGRAPHIES "This is an original and richly informed life of the great poet, both sympathetic and skeptical. John Worthen has brought a fresh pair of eyes to many aspects of Wordsworth's biography, and the result is a vivid and persuasive account of a remarkable personality." SEAMUS PERRY, UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD It is no secret that William Wordsworth's early years were marked by poverty. But just how important was a lack of money in shaping the poet's character and career? By delving deeply into the circumstances of Wordsworth's early years, biographer John Worthen reshapes our understanding of the great Romantic poet's most creative period of life and writing. We discover how rebellious and pig-headed the young Wordsworth needed to be in order to survive; we observe the critical role Dorothy played in unleashing her brother's poetic genius; we realize the importance of Lakeland's "Dove Cottage" to him (it was wonderfully cheap); we appreciate the nature of the great "philosophical" poem The Recluse, which occupied so much of Wordsworth's poetic career; and we understand the importance (far too often under-rated) of Samuel Taylor Coleridge to him. Scholarly and thought-provoking, The Life of William Wordsworth: A Critical Biography breathes new life into our understanding of the life and work of this great English poet.

“John Worthen’s engaging new biography of Wordsworth begins by quoting the poet’s recollection of himself at around the age of 10, surveying tall trees, black chasms, and dizzy crags: ‘I loved to stand and & read j Their looks forbidding’, he says, ‘read & disobey’ (p. 3). . . Worthen’s book is a revealing account of the consequences of that daring.”  (The Review of English Studies, 15 October 2014)

"This is an original and richly informed life of the great poet, both sympathetic and sceptical. John Worthen has brought a fresh pair of eyes to many aspects of Wordsworth's biography, and the result is a vivid and persuasive account of a remarkable personality." —Seamus Perry, University of Oxford