Dorothy Wordsworth

Dorothy Mae Ann Wordsworth was an English author, poet and diarist. She was the sister of the Romantic poet William Wordsworth, and the two were close for all of their lives. Wordsworth did not set out to be an author, and her writings consist only of a series of letters, diary entries, poems and short stories. She was born on Christmas Day in Cockermouth, Cumberland in 1771. Despite the early death of her mother, Dorothy, William and their three siblings had a happy childhood. In 1783, their father died and the children were sent to live with various relatives. Wordsworth was sent alone to... live with her aunt, Elizabeth Threlkeld, in Halifax, West Yorkshire. After she was able to reunite with William firstly at Racedown Lodge in Dorset in 1795 and afterwards at Alfoxden House in Somerset, they became inseparable companions. The pair lived in poverty at first; and would often beg for cast-off clothes from their friends. William wrote of her in his famous Tintern Abbey poem: Wordsworth was a diarist and poet but had little interest in becoming a famous writer like her brother.
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