NEW Editorial News Feature:

“The loveliest spot that man hath ever found”: Dove Cottage and the Wordsworth Manuscripts

Sarah Phillips, Editorial Assistant

“The loveliest spot that man hath ever found”: Dove Cottage and the Wordsworth Manuscripts

Nestled in the breathtaking valley of Grasmere lies Dove Cottage, home of William Wordsworth between 1799 and 1808. Visitors by the coach-load make their pilgrimage to this tranquil setting to pay homage to one of Romantic literature’s best-loved poets. Though, perhaps, the modern hustle and bustle of human traffic through the tiny hamlet of Town End is a far cry from the peaceful tranquility that William and his sister Dorothy treasured here, a stolen moment of quiet reflection allows one to appreciate the “loveliest spot that man hath ever found”. This “loveliest” of “spot(s)” is the setting for the latest in our Literary Manuscripts collections: The Romantics: Literature, Art and Culture. It is for the purpose of researching the material for this project that I find myself in the reading room of the Jerwood Centre with one of the many volume manuscripts of ‘The Prelude’ in hand.

Up there with William Blake, William Wordsworth is one of my favourite poets, introduced to me in my A Level college days and pursued further at University. I can’t help thinking how lucky I am, how fortunate and privileged to be looking at this fantastic material – reams of manuscript poetry, countless times edited and revised, journals and letters – an insight not only into William’s literary life but also a glimpse into his private, domestic life and inner social circle, itself dotted with literary lights. I turn to glance out of the window, catching a glimpse of Helm Crag in the distance, and little wonder that such a landscape, sublime and breathtakingly beautiful, inspired so much of his poetry.

The collections are kept by the Wordsworth Trust which was founded in 1891 to preserve Dove Cottage for all lovers of English poetry. In 1935, the Wordsworth manuscripts were entrusted to the care of the Trust by Gordon Wordsworth, William’s grandson, the acquisition of which propelled the Trust into a major academic centre; in 1997, the Dove Cottage collections were acknowledged “as a collection of national and social importance”[1]. Our project will draw on this largest single collection of Wordsworth manuscripts (it is 90% complete) as well as significant material from prominent poets, authors and artists within Wordsworth’s literary circle which boasted Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Robert Southey and Thomas de Quincey, among them; in fact, the Dove Cottage collections house the complete de Quincey manuscripts which include his famous Confessions of an Opium Eater, often credited as the first documented account of drug abuse and addiction in the English language. De Quincey became a close family friend and took over the tenancy of Dove Cottage following Wordsworth’s move to Allan Bank.

Over the course of William’s nine-year residence at Dove Cottage, he wrote and published some of his most influential and famous works. In 1800, a second edition of Lyrical Ballads, his inspired collaboration with Coleridge, was published and included new poems such as ‘Michael’ and ‘Strange fits of passion have I known’. It was at Dove Cottage that he completed ‘The Prelude’ in 1805 whilst 1807 saw the publication of Poems in Two Volumes which included ‘Resolution and Independence’ (1802), ‘Ode: Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood’ (1804) and ‘I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud’ (otherwise, and more commonly known as ‘Daffodils’) (1804), which leads me to mention his much-loved sister and companion, Dorothy Wordsworth.

Dorothy was a vibrant, intelligent, lively woman whom Coleridge described as William’s “exquisite sister…simple, ardent, innocent…her eye watchful in minutest observation of nature”[2]. William drew direct inspiration from Dorothy’s close and sympathetic observations of nature which she recorded in her journals; her most famous and significant influence is evidenced in ‘I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud’ and ‘Beggars’. Dorothy’s Grasmere journals which she kept from May 1800 until January 1803 are one of the many highlights in the collection. They provide a tantalising insight into daily life at Dove Cottage, both domestic and social; William’s peculiar methods of composition; her relationship with William, and later, with his wife Mary Hutchinson and their children. Likewise, her Alfoxden Journal (1798) and ‘Recollections of a Tour Made in Scotland’ are hidden gems. Though Dorothy never intended to become a published author, once recording that, "I should detest the idea of setting myself up as an author"[3], her diaries, travel journals and letter collections have since found their way into publication, and with much success.

My week at Dove Cottage, counting and assessing material for this exciting project, was an unforgettable experience. The depth and range of material cannot be given justice in this brief article – a letter from Lord Nelson to Alexander Ball, the first British Governor of Malta; a holograph letter from George Washington to Arthur Lee, both items collected by Dora Wordsworth, William’s beloved daughter, in her autograph book that contains over 170 letters with representations from the likes of Charles James Fox, Sir Walter Scott and William Wilberforce. I cannot think of a more perfect setting for the final resting place of the Wordsworth manuscripts, it feels right that they remain in this unspoiled corner of England, surrounded by the beautiful, breathtaking and awesome landscape that was such a source of inspiration to Romantic literature’s greatest poet.

Notes:

[1]Woof, Robert, Treasures of the Wordsworth Trust (The Wordsworth Trust, 2005), p, 11

[2] Ousby, Ian, The Cambridge Guide to Literature in English (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993), p. 1040.

[3] De Selincourt, Ernest (ed.), The Letters of William and Dorothy Wordsworth, vol. 2  (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1967), p.  454

Sarah Phillips
Editorial Assistant