Dorothy Wordsworth: The Story of a Sister's Love

Lee, EdmundProject Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

Rating 3.3
Word count
305K words
Chapters
31

Tags

English Originals Women's BiographyLiterary Figures Portrait GallerySibling BondLiterary FamilyPoet BiographySpiritual ComfortGrowing UpHeartwarming Narrative19th Century

Summary

Project Gutenberg was the first provider of free electronic books, or eBooks. Michael Hart, founder of Project Gutenberg, invented eBooks in 1971 and his memory continues to inspire the creation of eBooks and related technologies today.Dorothy Wordsworth: The Story of a Sister's Love by Edmund LeeAuthor: Lee, Edmund,Language: English, Class: PR: Language and Literatures: English literature, Release Date: Nov 28, 2012

Editor's review

This book centers on Dorothy Wordsworth and recounts the deep sibling bond between her and the poet William Wordsworth. It is a biographical work of English literature, released as a free e-book by Project Gutenberg. Its value lies in giving readers access to the lives of the Wordsworth siblings from the perspective of family and emotion, and in showing Dorothy's role as a diarist and as a source of inspiration to the poet. The narrative emphasizes emotional and biographical threads, making it suitable for readers interested in the background of English Romantic literature, biography, and letters and diaries. When reading, one may pair it with Wordsworth's poems and selections from Dorothy's diaries to appreciate the resonances between the texts; at the same time, note that the book was written long ago and its narrative carries the lyrical tone of biographical literature, so it is best treated as an introductory work rather than a rigorously documented scholarly biography.

Who it's for

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Reading tips

  1. Read Wordsworth's representative poems first, then this book, to understand Dorothy's influence on his writing.
  2. Read alongside selections from Dorothy's diaries to appreciate her observation and prose style.
  3. Lay out the siblings' major life events on a timeline and make a brief chronology to aid understanding.
  4. Treat this book as an introduction, then consult more authoritative scholarly biographies to supplement the documentation.

About the publisher

Project Gutenberg United States · Founded in 1971

Project Gutenberg is a digital publishing project focused on public-domain ebooks. Its publishing direction centers on classic literary works whose copyright has expired, covering genres such as poetry, drama, fiction, and epic. Representative books include Lyrical Ballads by Wordsworth and Coleridge, Proust's Du côté de chez Swann, Shakespeare's Macbeth and The Complete Works of William Shakespeare, Homer's The Iliad, Dante's La Divina Comèdia: Purgatòri, Cervantes's The History of Don Quixote, Volume 2, and Grahame's The Wind in the Willows. Its author resources consist mainly of classic Western writers such as Wordsworth, Proust, Shakespeare, Homer, Dante, Cervantes, Grahame, and Tolstoy. Its publishing feature is the provision of freely accessible ebooks in EPUB and Kindle formats; it is not a traditional publisher, and publicly available information is limited.

Contents

  1. 1
  2. 2
  3. 3
  4. 4
  5. 5
  6. 6
  7. 7
  8. 8
  9. 9
  10. 10
  11. 11
  12. 12
  13. 13
  14. 14
  15. 15
  16. 16
  17. 17
  18. 18
  19. 19
  20. 20
  21. 21
  22. 22
  23. 23
  24. 24
  25. 25
  26. 26
  27. 27
  28. 28
  29. 29
  30. 30
  31. 31

FAQ

What is this book mainly about? Centering on Dorothy Wordsworth, this book recounts the deep sibling bond between her and her brother William Wordsworth and their life experiences. It is a biographical work of English literature, emphasizing emotional and biographical threads, and is released as an English e-book by Project Gutenberg.
Do I need to read Wordsworth's poems before reading this book? It is not strictly necessary, but reading a few of Wordsworth's representative poems first will help in understanding the relationships in the book and Dorothy's role. If you know nothing about the poet, you can also read this book first to form an impression of the people, then go back to the poems; the two complement each other.
Is this book suitable as material for academic research? The book was written long ago, and its narrative leans toward a lyrical biographical tone with little rigorous annotation or documentation, making it better suited as an introductory or background read. For academic research, it should be paired with authoritative scholarly biographies and primary letters and diaries, with care taken to verify the facts.

This site is an index: you start “Search all sources” in your browser, and the entries it lists all point to third-party sites; please judge their availability yourself.

About the author

Lee, Edmund Author

Edmund Lee is an author about whom relatively limited public information is available; details such as nationality, dates of birth and death, and educational background have not been clearly recorded. Judging from the two works held in the collection, Dorothy Wordsworth: The Story of a Sister's Love and Some Noble Sisters, his writing interests center on female figures and family relationships, with particular attention to Dorothy Wordsworth, the sister who accompanied the poet William Wordsworth throughout his life, as well as to historical sisters known for their character or affection. Works of this kind generally take the form of biography and character sketch, written in plain language and emphasizing emotion and personality. Though few in number, the two books show a sustained interest in women's biography and literary portraiture. For readers wishing to learn more about the domestic life of the Wordsworth family, his works may serve as one reference source.