Wordsworth

Somerset’s Quantock Hills and Exmoor: Follow in the footsteps of Coleridge and Wordsworth

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Pottering poetically: Following in the footsteps of our hike-loving literary giants in Somerset’s beautiful Quantock Hills and across Exmoor (via a few good pubs, of course) Coleridge and Wordsworth spent time galumphing around the Quantock Hills in Somerset in the 18th century The Daily Mail’s Ed Cumming traced the Romantic poets’ steps on a four-day, … Read more

DOMINIC SANDBROOK: How dare the National Trust link Wordsworth to slavery?

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For the past 125 years, the National Trust has been the single most important custodian of our national story.  Since 1895 it has cared for hundreds of castles, country houses, parks and gardens, including some of the most beloved places our islands have to offer. The majesty of the Giant’s Causeway, the Palladian gardens at … Read more

CRAIG BROWN: From The Beatles to Wordsworth in three shakes of a lamb’s tail for Macca 

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Last week, there were two major cultural anniversaries. Two hundred and fifty years ago, on April 7, 1770, William Wordsworth was born.  Fifty years ago, on April 10, 1970, The Beatles split up. Does anything link these two anniversaries? They seem to belong to different worlds and, in many ways, they do.  Yet bizarre though … Read more

When Coleridge found Wordsworth in bed with the love of his life the poets fell out bitterly

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BOOK OF THE WEEK RADICAL WORDSWORTH     by Jonathan Bate (William Collins, £25, 608 pp) The poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge spent Christmas Day 1806 with his close friend William Wordsworth, together with Wordsworth’s wife Mary, her sister Sara Hutchinson and Wordsworth’s own sister, Dorothy. Two days later, Coleridge bolted from the house. Taking refuge in the … Read more

Following in the footsteps of William Wordsworth in the Lake District

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A portrait of William Wordsworth  Admittedly, it’s a muted kind of celebration given the circumstances in which the whole nation finds itself. But, long term, the crowds will return (often far too many of them) and normal service will resume to mark the 250th anniversary of William Wordsworth’s birth. Of course, the great poet’s A … Read more

Were William Wordsworth and his sister secretly sharing a forbidden love?

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There were always signs that the relationship between the late, great romantic poet, William Wordsworth, and his sister Dorothy, was not the normal sibling bicker-fest.  For starters, there was the way she coveted her brother’s half-eaten apple cores, treasuring the teeth-marks and popping the browning remains in her pinny pocket for safekeeping.  ‘Oh the darling, … Read more

Wordsworth, Coleridge – and a biography so beguiling it’s poetry in itself

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For just over a year, two of the greatest poets in the English language lived within a few miles of one another, in the Quantock Hills in Somerset. They were both bristling with energy. William Wordsworth, aged 27, had once walked 3,000 miles through France and Switzerland. Samuel Taylor Coleridge, three years his junior, thought … Read more

Britain at its best: Walking with Wordsworth in the Wye and Usk valleys

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Britain at its best: Walking with Wordsworth in the Wye and Usk valleys Gliffaes is an ‘ultra-comfy’ country house hotel in the Usk Valley, Wales The artist and cleric Rev William Gilpin once lauded the qualities of the river Wye Llangoed Hall, above Hay-on-Wye, is being ‘driven to yet greater heights’  By Clive Aslet For … Read more