Dorothy Wordsworth's Rydal Journals

Although Dorothy Wordsworth’s journals have long been celebrated for their vibrant and keen-eyed portraits of everyday life, until now only brief excerpts have been available from her most extensive set of diaries – the fifteen notebooks from 1824–35 that have come to be known as the Rydal Journals. This scholarly edition of the complete contents of these journals therefore marks a watershed moment for the study of this remarkable woman and, more generally, the shifting literary, cultural, and political realities of Reform-era Britain. The first half of the Rydal Journals chronicles the comings and goings of a buoyant fifty-something still in her physical and intellectual prime, capturing her bustling social life when at home in the Lakes and her zeal for new adventures when travelling to Manchester, Yorkshire, the Midlands, the Welsh Marches, and the Isle of Man. The ensuing half, by contrast, offers an alternately inspiring and heart-breaking record of the diarist’s attempts to find joy and meaning amid the sudden onset of old age and disability that followed her near-fatal illness of 1829. Besides providing long-overdue access to what may be the last great trove of unpublished life writing by a major English Romantic, this edition surrounds the text of the journals with dozens of illustrations, a wealth of explanatory footnotes, and engaging introductions to the people, places, and events that helped define this pivotal decade of Dorothy Wordsworth’s life.

Nicholas Mason is Professor of English at Brigham Young University. His publications on Romantic-era literature include recent editions of Dorothy Wordsworth’s Lake District writings and her brother William’s Guide to the Lakes.