Dorothy Wordsworth (1771-1855) ms, verse Fragments of a journal in the hand of Dorothy Wordsworth (6 leaves and 2 stubs). Extracts composed in 1798 and 1802, on a trip to Calais and a journey from Hamburg to Goslar. Transcribed sometime between 1806 and 1811. Includes an incomplete draft of 'Sonnet On Milton'. Size 248mm x 197mm (hxw). The first four leaves contain various descriptive prose passages by Dorothy Wordsworth about expeditions by her and William: their visit to Calais in 1802 and the journey from Hamburg to Goslar in 1798. The notebook is watermarked with a crowned shield charged with a horn, and countermarked 1798. The entries were not made until much later though. Professor Betz has shown that the fragments date perhaps from 1810 or 1811, and Mark Reed agrees that they cannot have been made before 1806, which was the earliest use of paper with such watermarks. Provenance: Bequest of Gordon Graham Wordsworth, 1935 Exhibited: Dorothy: Writer, Sister, Friend, Wordsworth Grasmere, 2021-2 Literature: Ketcham, C.H.1989, The Cornell Wordsworth, Cornell University Press, Shorter Poems, 1807-1820 (p.xxv, 46, 292-293) Reed, M.L.1975, Wordsworth The Chronology of the Middle Years, Harvard University Press, (p.189) See also: DCMS 63.1 ('Sonnet on Milton' by William Wordsworth. First line, 'Amid the dark control of lawless sway'.)

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Reference DCMS 63