[Gutenberg 42856] • Journals of Dorothy Wordsworth, Vol. 1 (of 2)

Dorothy Wordsworth is probably the most remarkable and the most distinguished of English prose writers who never wrote a line for the publisher. Her Recollections of a Tour Made in Scotland (1803) remained in manuscript for seventy years after its composition, and it was not till 1897 that Professor William Knight's well-known edition of her Journals made its appearance. Since that time interest has steadily grown both in her fascinating personality and in the writings that so faithfully reflect it, and, as a consequence of that interest, the desire to possess a fuller body of her work, In this edition her Journals, written in Germany (1798), at Grasmere (1800-1803) and in the Isle of Man (1828), are for the first time printed without omissions; her Excursions on the Banks of Ullswater (1805) and to the top of Scawfell (1818), abbreviated and partly rewritten by her brother for inclusion in his Guide to the Lakes, are her reproduced as she originally wrote them; and a much fuller version than has hitherto been printen is given of her Tour on the Continent (1820) and of her Second Scottish Tour (1822). Altogether, these volumes contain nearly twice as much matter as the previous editions.

Professor E. de Selincourt's reputation as a Wordsworthian scholar was established by his editions of The Prelude and the Letters of William and Dorothy Wordsworth, and by his Life of Dorothy Wordsworth. It was fitting that his crowning achievement in this field should be the production of this definitive edition of the Journals.