Dorothy Wordsworth

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Rydal and her final years

In 1802, Dorothy journeyed with William to Gallow Hill, Yorkshire for his marriage to Mary Hutchinson. Dorothy did not attend the wedding ceremony. After their marriage, the Wordsworth siblings, with the addition of William’s new wife, returned to Grasmere. Dorothy played a devoted role in the lives of William and Mary's children born in the following years. In 1803, Dorothy joined William and Samuel Taylor Coleridge on a six-week tour of the Scottish Highlands. This journey inspired her to pen Recollections of a Tour Made in Scotland, which was, according to Dorothy, written for "the sake of a few friends, who, it seemed, ought to have been with us." She concluded her renowned Grasmere Journal in the same year.

The Wordsworths settled in Rydal Mount in 1813, where Dorothy resided for the remainder of her life. Alongside her friend Mary Barker, Dorothy ascended Scafell Pike in 1818, an experience she documented in "An Excursion up Scawfell Pike." Additionally, she embarked on a continental tour of the Alps in 1820, documenting her travels in "Journal of a Tour on the Continent". The following years saw Dorothy engaging in further explorations, including tours of the Scottish Highlands and Edinburgh, resulting in "Journal of my Second Tour in Scotland, 1822".

From 1824 to 1835, Dorothy wrote of daily events, with frequent gaps, in her Rydal Journals. These journals, apart from the "Isle of Man" sequence, have not yet been published. In 1829, Dorothy fell seriously ill, followed by a brief recovery period and eventual relapse in 1831. Despite battling a degenerative illness, Dorothy continued writing, including compositions later published in William Wordsworth's collections. Due to her health, Dorothy was cared for by her brother William, his wife Mary, and the Rydal staff. Following William's passing in April 1850, Dorothy's health continued to decline until her death on 25 January 1855. She lies buried in St Oswald Churchyard in Grasmere, next to her brother.

Writing

Wordsworth was primarily a diarist, and she also wrote poetry though without much interest in becoming an established poet. She almost published her account of traveling in Scotland with William and Samuel Taylor Coleridge in 1803, Recollections of a Tour Made in Scotland, but a publisher was not found, and it would not be published until 1874.

She wrote a very early account of an ascent of Scafell Pike in 1818, climbing the mountain in the company of her friend Mary Barker, Miss Barker's maid, and two local people to act as guide and porter. Dorothy's work was used in 1822 (and later in 1823 and 1835) by her brother William, unattributed, in his popular guide book to the Lake District – and this was then copied by Harriet Martineau in her equally successful guide (in its fourth edition by 1876), but with attribution, if only to William Wordsworth. The account was quoted in other guidebooks as well. Consequently, this story was very widely read by the many visitors to the Lake District over more than half of the 19th century.

The Grasmere Journal and Dorothy's other works revealed how vital she was to her brother's success. William relied on her detailed accounts of nature scenes and borrowed freely from her journals. He drew inspiration from Dorothy's journal entry of the sibling's encounter with a field of daffodils:

I never saw daffodils so beautiful they grew among the mossy stones about and about them, some rested their heads upon these stones as on a pillow for weariness and the rest tossed and reeled and danced and seemed as if they verily laughed with the wind that blew upon them over the lake, they looked so gay ever glancing ever changing.

In his poem, "I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud," William describes what appears to be the shared experience in the journal as his own solitary observation. Dorothy's observations and descriptions have been considered to be as poetic if not more so than those of her brother. In her time she was described as being one of the few writers who could have provided so vivid and picturesque a scene.

Dorothy Wordsworth

Dorothy Wordsworth

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Early life and education

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Early life and education

Alfoxden and Grasmere

Rydal and her final years

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