Recovering Dorothy: The Hidden Life of Dorothy Wordsworth

by Polly Atkin

Dorothy Wordsworth is well-known as the author of the Alfoxden and Grasmere Journals (1798–1803) and as the sister of the poet William Wordsworth. She is praised for her nature writing and as a woman with great physical vitality: someone who could walk long distances, who had great stamina, strength, and a certain wildness. Less well known is that in 1829 Dorothy became seriously ill, and was mostly housebound from 1835. She lived another twenty years after that, outliving her brother by five years.

This book is about the Dorothy we don’t know – disabled, housebound – who makes her sick room into a garden for herself and her pet robin, and who is finally able to call herself a poet. Recovering Dorothy draws on the unpublished journals of her illness to place the whole Dorothy back into her own life story.

Genres: Nonfiction, Romanticism

264 pages, Paperback

First published November 25, 2021

About the author

Polly Atkin is an English poet and academic.

She lives in Cumbria and teaches English Literature and Creative Writing at the University of Strathclyde. She has published widely in magazines and literary journals, and her pamphlet, Bone Song, was shortlisted for the 2009 Michael Marks Pamphlet Award.

Her second pamphlet, Shadow Dispatches, won the 2012 Mslexia Pamphlet Prize and is published by Seren.

Reviews

[Ruth]

Polly Atkin is very quickly becoming a new favourite author of mine ... What a great book, for anyone with an interest in women in literature, and for those living with chronic illness. This book (and Polly Atkin's other work) will make you feel seen, heard, and believed.

[Julia Koncurat]

A fantastic work of scholarship. Atkin's work was super accessible and completely reframed the way I read Dorothy Wordsworth.