Inscribed

The Poetical Works.

London: Edward Moxon, Dover Street, 1849-1850.

Price: $4,000.00


About the item

New edition. 6 vols. 8vo. Inscribed. Publisher’s full red blind stamped cloth, spines gilt, a.e.g. Spines worn (spines of first three vols. perished, lower board of vol. I detached). In red cloth folding case.

Item #231777

With a choice and very late presentation inscription from the author on the half-title of volume I, “Mary Smith/ from her/ affectionate Cousin/ William Wordsworth/ Rydal Mount/ Ist Jan 1850.” Mary Smith has written her name in pencil on the title-page of each of the other five volumes in the set.

“The years of Wordsworth's greatest fame, however, were also a time of much personal grief. In 1833 Dorothy Wordsworth was taken seriously ill, and in the coming years she fell prey to a form of Alzheimer's disease. She was nursed at Rydal Mount until her death in 1855, and at the very end of Wordsworth's life Mary Wordsworth remarked that the one thing that continued to give him pleasure was ministering to the ‘dear, dear Sister’ of ‘Tintern Abbey’ (reported by Henry Crabb Robinson, 15 Jan [1849]). … Having taken pleurisy from recklessly walking out in frosty weather, Wordsworth died at Rydal Mount on 23 April 1850” (ODNB).