In the original dustsheet. Green cloth binding with gilt title on the spine.

• F.B.A. provides an in-depth photographic presentation of this item to stimulate your feeling and touch. More traditional book descriptions are immediately available.

Ordinarily presented as a self-effacing virgin or sacrificial saint, Dorothy Wordsworth was a talented writer and exceptional woman. She was William Wordsworth’s inspiration, aide and most valued reader and traded in a conventional life to share in his world of words. In her journals, Dorothy kept a record of their idyllic life together. The tale that unfolds through her brief, lyrical entries reveals a strange, intangible love between brother and sister, culminating in Dorothy’s dramatic collapse on the day of William’s wedding. In her beautifully told biography, Frances Wilson brings Dorothy to life in all her complexity. From the restrained prose of Dorothy’s journals, she uncovers the rich emotional life of a woman who suffered the jealousies of a discarded mistress – and eventually insanity.

Reviews:

• Ballad of Dorothy Wordsworth, by Frances Wilson,is a hugely powerful biography of Wordsworth’s beloved sister, champion and muse.

• A very well written and researched biography. Having walked many times in the Grasmere area and visited the simple little church where they (William and dorothy and friends) all attended, and where, ultimately, Dorothy was buried and being unable to get very much from the church or the graves, this book helped bring those former times alive.This work delves into Dorothy’s deep attachment to her brother and gives us a much better insight into their relationship. (than previous books ever did)It is a very revealing moment when William finally takes a bride and Dorothy becomes distraught and suffers feelings of being abandoned. Top research and interpretation and worthy of a place amongst the biographies of the poets.

The Author, Frances Wilson is the author of Literary Seductions, which was praised by Alain de Botton as ‘psychologically rich and wise’, and The Courtesan’s Revenge, which was described as “a wonderful biography … Witty and sharp’ by Jane Ridley in the Spectator. She lives in London with her daughter.