Wordsworth Family Papers

This small collection consists of three notebooks and correspondence written by members of the family or immediate circle of poet William Wordsworth. One small notebook by Christopher Wordsworth (ca1791), brother of the poet, includes some earlier entries by William (ca1784-5). A longer notebook by the poet’s nephew and biographer, Christopher Wordsworth, records several conversations with the poet (1834-5). There are several small collections of correspondence. Christopher Wordsworth wrote seven letters to Mary Sykes Watson in 1836 and his son Christopher wrote nine letters to her between 1836 and 1838. Fanny Eliza (Graham) Wordsworth, wife of William Wordsworth, Jr. wrote four letters in 1866 to the Rev. Henry Michell Wagner who married Mary Sykes Watson in 1838. Gordon Wordsworth, grandson of poet William Wordsworth and son of William and Fanny, wrote two letters to Thomas J. Wise in 1917; both are concerned with Wise’s Bibliography of the Writings in Prose and Verse of William Wordsworth and the identification of some handwriting as by Sarah Hutchinson, not Dorothy Wordsworth.

Susan Wordsworth, daughter of Christopher Wordsworth and Head of Greyladies’ College for Women Workers, wrote three letters to the Rev. Henry Michell Wagner between 1905 and 1911 thanking him for donations.

The artist of a notebook with pencil and watercolor sketches of the Lake District after 1840 is not identified, but is likely by a member of the Watson-Wagner Circle related to the Wordsworth family or friends.