WORDSWORTH: GRASMERE JOURNALS C - Hardcover

`This will surely stand as the definitive text ... Her thorough and meticulous editing is crowned be extensive explanatory notes.' The Keswick Reminder

'Woof's textual, historical, and biographical notes are unprecendented in detail and comprehensiveness and will thus make a useful addition to libraries supporting advanced studies in the English romantic period.' N. Fruman, University of Minnesota, Choice, Apr '92

'it is, indeed, for the Notes, which do function as a running commentary on Dorothy Wordsworth's record, that we should be most grateful ... She has solved a few problems which baffled earlier editors ... Pamela Woof's edition should remain the standard one; it certainly brings with it the necessary sense of the impromptu, of what, in her Introduction she describes as the way 'the eye darts from fragment to fragment'. Her account of the effect of the writing is, as in this phrase, perceptive. The edition is a handsome one and encourages careful reading.'Douglas Hewitt, Pembroke College, Oxford, Notes and Queries, Vol. 39, No. 3, Sept '92

'Pamela Woof has set about restoring the integrity of the original text. Pamela Woof has in a large measure brought us nearer to the heart of the Journals ... Pamela Woof's dedicated study of the Journals revealed how conscious a writer Dorothy often is. Pamela Woof has prefaced this new edition with a generous introduction which captures the mood and varying pace.'Contemporary Review

'This has to be considered the standard edition of Dorothy Wordsworth's Grasmere journals.'Peter Morgan, University of Toronto, English Studies, Volume 73, Number 6, December 1992

This new edition of perhaps the best-loved of all journals is based on a fresh examination of the original manuscripts. There is an enormously expanded commentary full of new information on every aspect of the people, places and books mentioned.

The journal is intimately and vividly written and still a compelling read. Dorothy Wordsworth began it in 1800 to give her poet-brother pleasure, and for three years she noted the walks and weathers, the friends, the country neighbours, the beggars on the Grasmere roads. The Journal has many stories: of Wordsworth's marriage, of the concern the Wordsworths felt for Coleridge, and of the composition of poetry. It is an excellent source of information about Wordsworth, his circle and methods of writing.
This new edition yields new readings of mis-read or undeciphered words, and restores Dorothy's hasty punctuation. It brings us closer to her as a writer than ever before: her first thoughts, her crossings-out, her after-thoughts, the hurried flow of her expression.