In this second edition of William Wordsworth: A Life, Stephen Gill draws on knowledge of the poet's creative practices and his reputation and influence in his life-time and beyond. Refusing to treat the poet's later years as of little interest, this biography presents a narrative of the whole of Wordsworth's long life—1770 to 1850—tracing the development from the adventurous youth who alone of the great Romantic poets saw life in revolutionary France to the old man who became Queen Victoria's Poet Laureate. The various phases of Wordsworth's life are explored with a not uncritical sympathy; the narrative brings out the courage he and his wife and family were called upon to show as they crafted the life they wanted to lead. While the emphasis is on Wordsworth the writer, the personal relationships that nourished his creativity are fully treated, as are the historical circumstances that affected the production of his poetry. Wordsworth, it is widely believed, valued poetic spontaneity. He did, but he also took pains over every detail of the process of publication. The foundation of this second edition of the biography remains, as it was of the first, a conviction that Wordsworth's poetry, which has given pleasure and comfort to generations of readers in the past, will continue to do so in the years to come.

First published in 1974. Wordsworth, with Coleridge, is the major literary critic of the Romantic period. This volume assembles all of Wordsworth’s formal critical writings and a selection of critical comments from his correspondence. These documents are invaluable for Romantic poetry at large, and his theories — particularly on poetic diction, ordinary language and the nature of the creative process — inspired lively critical debate. This book discusses the nature and origin of Wordsworth’s criticism in general, and the literary tradition from which they sprang. The texts are succinctly annotated and there is a select bibliography. This book will be of interest to students of literature.

On the 250th anniversary of Wordsworth’s birth comes a highly imaginative and vivid portrait of a revolutionary poet who embodied the spirit of his age Published in time for the 250th anniversary of William Wordsworth’s birth, this is the biography of a great poetic genius, a revolutionary who changed the world. Wordsworth rejoiced in the French Revolution and played a central role in the cultural upheaval that we call the Romantic Revolution. He and his fellow Romantics changed forever the way we think about childhood, the sense of the self, our connection to the natural environment, and the purpose of poetry. But his was also a revolutionary life in the old sense of the word, insofar as his art was of memory, the return of the past, the circling back to childhood and youth. This beautifully written biography is purposefully fragmentary, momentary, and selective, opening up what Wordsworth called "the hiding-places of my power."

William and Dorothy Wordsworth is the first literary biography of the Wordsworths' creative collaboration. Using poems, letters, journals, memoirs, and biographies, it plots the intertwined lives of the Wordsworth siblings and their writing.

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. Features new research into Wordsworth’s financial situation, and into how the poet and his family survived financially Offers a new understanding of the role of his great unwritten poem ‘The Recluse’ Presents a new assessment of the relationship between Wordsworth and Coleridge