William Wordsworth
William Wordsworth (1770-1850) was a major English poet who, with his friend Samuel Taylor Coleridge, helped to launch the Romantic Age in English literature. Wordsworth’s poetry takes inspiration from his early travels through Europe as well as the beauty he experienced in nature, especially in his native Lake District. He was always close to his beloved sister, Dorothy, and in 1802 married a childhood friend, Mary Hutchinson. They had five children, though three died early. Wordsworth was Britain's poet laureate from 1843 until his death from pleurisy on April 23, 1850.
‘Portrait of William Wordsworth’ was painted by Benjamin Robert Haydon in 1842 and hangs in the National Portrait Gallery in London.
William Wordsworth’s wonderful ode to the city of London – with the charming back story of how the poem came to be written. Continue reading →
