A Passionate Sisterhood
4/5
()
About this ebook
The Lake Poets, Wordsworth, Coleridge and Southey, have become a literary myth and we are used to looking at the Lake District landscape through its romantic prism. But for their sisters, wives and daughters the view was very different. The Wordsworths lived at Grasmere, the Coleridges and Southeys twelve miles away at Keswick and the women created a kind of extended family that kept the group together long after the men had ceased to be friends. Based on necessity, it was far from the harmonious rustic idyll of the myth. Dorothy Wordsworth's consuming love for her brother William forced Mary, his wife, to compete for her husband's affections for more than forty years. When Coleridge fell in love with Mary's sister, Sarah Coleridge found herself abandoned with three small children, forced to live on the charity of her brother-in-law Robert Southey. For the daughters, the 'legacy of genius' was equally destructive. Dora Wordsworth was sent to boarding school at four to learn to become 'a useful girl in the family' and was not allowed to marry the man she loved until she was thirty-seven and dying from TB. Her childhood friend, the young Sara Coleridge, had to fight disapproval, domestic conflict, unwanted pregnancy, depression, opium and morphine addiction to carve out a career as a writer and editor of national standing.
Their letters and journals form the basis for an illuminating new account of their interconnected lives - their passionate attachments, petty jealousies, the deaths of children, the realities of chronic ill health and barbaric medical practice. They also contribute to a fuller understanding of Wordsworth, Coleridge and Southey as all- too fallible human beings.
Read more from Kathleen Jones
Catherine Cookson: Child of the Tyne Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Learning Not To Be First: The Life of Christina Rossetti Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsMussolini's Hat: and Other Stories Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsKatherine Mansfield: The Story-Teller Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Travelling to the Edge of the World Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThree Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsDreams of the Blue Poppy Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsMargaret Forster: A Life in Books Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsA Passionate Sisterhood: The sisters, wives and daughters of the Lake Poets Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings
Related to A Passionate Sisterhood
Related ebooks
My Tongue is My Own: A Life of Gwen Harwood Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Common Reader - Second Series Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Ballad of Dorothy Wordsworth: A Life Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Marching Spain Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Miss Marjoribanks Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5River Diary Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsCaptain Burle (Unabridged) Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Odd Women Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Kilvert's Diary 1870-1879 - Selections from the Diary of the REV. Francis Kilvert Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Diana of the Crossways: “I expect that Woman will be the last thing civilized by Man.” Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Journals of Dorothy Wordsworth, Vol. I (of 2) Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Law and the Lady Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Wild Cherry Tree Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Woodlanders Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Virginia Woolf: A Portrait Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsA Study Guide for Anne Tyler's "Digging to America" Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsStour Seasons Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Gorse Blooms Pale: Dan Davin's Southland Stories Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Learning Not To Be First: The Life of Christina Rossetti Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsHenry James Short Stories Volume 3 Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Journals of Dorothy Wordsworth, Vol. II (of 2) Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Poetry Of Katherine Mansfield: "The pleasure of all readings is doubled when one lives with another who shares the same books." Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsDoctor Wortle's School Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Ethan Frome: with an introduction by Edith Wharton Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Life and Loves of Lena Gaunt Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Barnaby Rudge by Charles Dickens (Illustrated) Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Garden Party and Other Stories Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Delphi Complete Works of Matthew Lewis (Illustrated) Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsFourfront: Short Stories from the Irish Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings
Literary Biographies For You
Dry: A Memoir Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Oscar Wilde: The Unrepentant Years Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5People, Places, Things: My Human Landmarks Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Writing into the Wound: Understanding trauma, truth, and language Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Lincoln Lawyer: A Mysterious Profile Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsPity the Reader: On Writing with Style Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Don't Panic: Douglas Adams & The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Glass Castle: A Memoir Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Maybe You Should Talk to Someone: the heartfelt, funny memoir by a New York Times bestselling therapist Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Hunger: A Memoir of (My) Body Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Man of Two Faces: A Memoir, A History, A Memorial Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Distance Between Us: A Memoir Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Devil and Harper Lee Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Dad on Pills: Fatherhood and Mental Illness Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Writer's Diary Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Moveable Feast Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Writers and Their Notebooks Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Agatha Christie: An Elusive Woman Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Very Best of Maya Angelou: The Voice of Inspiration Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Shakespeare: The World as Stage Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Real Lolita: A Lost Girl, an Unthinkable Crime, and a Scandalous Masterpiece Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5James Baldwin: A Biography Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Confessions of a Bookseller Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5These Precious Days: Essays Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Govt Cheese a memoir Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Things I Should Have Told My Daughter: Lies, Lessons & Love Affairs Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Woman Who Could Not Forget Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Deliberate Cruelty: Truman Capote, the Millionaire's Wife, and the Murder of the Century Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Teacher Man: A Memoir Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Exegesis of Philip K. Dick Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Reviews for A Passionate Sisterhood
10 ratings1 review
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5[edit]We were away in The Lake District for a holiday this summer and went to visit Wordsworth House (the house in which William Wordsworth was born) in Cockermouth which was so very interesting.Whilst in the shop on leaving I spotted this book which says it tells of the lives of the wives, sisters and daughters of the the lake poets, namely William Wordsworth, Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Robert Southey, and what an eyeopener it turned out to be absolutely fascinating! What a lot those women had to put up with for the sake of their husbands talent!The poets themselves would certainly not been as famous as they were if not for the women behind them. Apart from the fact they were all addicted to Laudanum a much used pain killer of the time. Samuel T Coleridge was absolutely hooked on it (which I think is fairly well known) and led a very merry life taking off all over the country leaving wife Sarah at home with the children and making her life a misery! I don't want to give too much away, but if you are interested in poets and poetry this is an excellent peek at the families around them, left to pick up the pieces of some very chaotic lives.