The Ballad of Dorothy Wordsworth

<p><b>The prize-winning biography of Wordsworth''s beloved sister, champion, muse who was at the heart of the Romantic movement in Britain - reissued to celebrate the 250th anniversary of Dorothy''s birth.</b><br><br><b>''Genius ... Its own kind of heaven.'' </b><i>New York Times</i> <br><br><b>''A most beautiful, deep, and humble study of incredibly complex people.''</b> Oliver Sacks <br><br><b>Dorothy Wordsworth is an enigma.</b> William''s beloved sister was his muse, champion, and most valued reader. She is mythologised as a self-effacing spinster and saintly amanuensis, yet Thomas De Quincey described her as ''all fire and ardour''. <br><br>Dorothy sacrificed a traditional life to share in her brother''s world of words. In her <b>Grasmere Journals</b>, she vividly recorded their intimate life together in the<b> Lake District</b>, marked by a startling freedom from social convention. The tale that unfolds in her brief, electric entries reveals an intense bond between siblings, culminating in Dorothy''s collapse on William''s wedding day - after which the woman who once strode the hills in all weathers retreated inside the house for the last three decades of her life.<br><br>In her <b>magisterial biography, Frances Wilson</b> uses the compressed emotion of Dorothy''s journals to evoke the rich interior world of a<b> woman determined to live on her own terms </b>- one who deserves her own place in the history of the <b>Romantic </b>movement<b>.</b> <br><br><b>''Intelligent and intriguing ... A portrait of a peculiar, passionate, yet meticulous woman which is hauntingly strange.''</b><i> Sunday Telegraph</i><br><br><b>''Passion is the keynote of Wilson''s fine biography ... Brims with the personality of [an] extraordinary woman ... Thrilling.''</b> <i>Sunday Times</i><br><br><b>''This beautiful, wise biography draws Dorothy from her hiding places. She emerges as a passionate figure.''</b> <i>Daily Telegraph</i><br><br><b>''Gripping ... Bold, witty, scholarly and speculative.’</b> Margaret Drabble</p>