William Wordsworth The Later Years 1803 1850

In her preface, Mrs. Moorman modestly claims not to have found out "many new facts about Wordsworth." To have discovered the Godwin and James Losh diaries, and to have thrown some new light upon the schooldays, upon Racedown, Alfoxden, and Goslar would seem unspectacular enough. Although the broad outline of the early years remains unchanged, Mrs. Moorman has so enriched it with detail and made it so much more coherent than it ever was before, that the period stands forth almost as a new thing. The most impressive achievement perhaps is to be seen in the passages of social and local history: accounts of the many places where Wordsworth's story is set, of the Lowther lawsuit, the undergraduate world of Cambridge; information about members of the family, and about those friends and acquaintances that flit like half-remembered names across the scene. The stories of Annette Vallon and of Michael Beaupuy are filled out; the account of Wordsworth's revolutionary activity is clarified; the narratives of the tour in France and Switzerland, the visit to Germany, and all the comings and goings in England and Wales before the first settlement with Dorothy at Racedown are clearly unfolded. With great care, Mrs. Moorman has unravelled and dated the biographical content of The Prelude and other poems. Wordsworth's last years were given over partly to "tinkering" his poems, as the family called his compulsive and persistent habit of revising his earlier poems through edition after edition. The Prelude, for instance, went through four distinct manuscript versions and was published only after the poet's death in 1850. Wordsworth succeeded his friend Robert Southey as Britain's poet laureate in 1843 and held that post until his own death in 1850.

This volume features 48 original essays, by an international team of scholar-critics, to present a stimulating account of Wordsworth's life and achievement and to map new directions in criticism.

William Wordsworth's poem 'The Prelude' is a fascinating work, both as an autobiography and as a fragment of historical evidence from the revolutionary and post-revolutionary years. This volume gathers together 13 essays on 'The Prelude', and is useful as a companion for students and general readers of Wordsworth's greatest poem.

In 1808 Sir Arthur Wellesley (later the Duke of Wellington) inflicted a major defeat on Napoleon's forces at the battle of Vimiero, but promptly signed an armistice and convention (negotiated by Sir Hew Dalrymple with General Junot). The Convention permitted the evacuation of the latter's defeated army from Portugal to Bayonne - along with its equipment and its plunder. This disgraceful Convention was regarded by the people of Britain - government ministers excepted - as a betrayal of Britain's allies, Portugal and Spain. Some of the troops repatriated under this agreement fought against Sir John Moore's expeditionary force the following year, forcing his evacuation from northern Spain. Wordsworth's enormous pamphlet on the betrayal of the Iberian patriots by Britain's officer class is one of the most remarkable political documents produced by a Romantic poet. Here the text of W J B Owen's 1968 edition is republished for the bicentennial, with a critical symposium by Richard Gravil, Simon Bainbridge, David Bromwich, Timothy Michael and Patrick Vincent.

Volume 1 of The Prose Works of William Wordsworth, as edited by W J B Owen and Jane W Smyser. This is a print version of the new, searchable, navigable, electronic edition of this standard work. Compared with the original Clarendon edition, this one has two advantages: textual notes are more clearly separated and are columnized; and the existence of editorial commentary is indicated by marginal symbols in the text (in the ebook, of course, these symbols are hyperlinked to the commentary). While colour is used in the preview, as in the ebook, the print in the paperback is black and white. The Contents include Wordsworth's famous poetical manifesto, the 'Preface to Lyrical Ballads', his Jacobinical defence of political terror in 'A Letter to the Bishop of Llandaff; and an impassioned intervention in the peninsular wars, protesting at British betrayal of Portuguese and Spanish allies at the Convention of Cintra.