Synopses & Reviews
In this group biography of the women who featured in the lives of the poets William Wordsworth, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, and Robert Southey, Kathleen Jones takes us into the kitchens, sickrooms, and eventually the madwoman's attics of these major Romantic households. The image of the familiar rustic idyll of Romantic poetry depends upon the bracing way these women bore the brunt of domestic realities. Their letters and journals form the basis for an illuminating new account of their interconnected lives--their passionate attachments, jealousies, the deaths of children, the realities of chronic ill health--at the same time contributing to our understanding of Wordsworth, Coleridge, and Southey as all-too-fallible human beings.
Review
“[R]eading [
A Passionate Sisterhood] becomes a gripping, almost addictive experience . . .” —
Times Literary Supplement“It is the stuff that your English teacher never told you.” —Daily Mail
“This is a fascinating, marvellous, utterly absorbing book.” —The Independent (London)
“This elegantly written book stands by itself.” —NWSA Journal
Synopsis
A group biography of the women who featured in the lives of the poets William Wordsworth, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, and Robert Southey.
Description
Includes bibliographical references (p. 304-306) and index.
About the Author
Kathleen Jones is the author of
Glorious Fame: The Life of Margaret Cavendish, Duchess of Newcastle, and
Learning Not to be First: The Life of Christina Rossetti.
Table of Contents
Preface: On the Other Side of the Glass *
Part One: Brothers and Sisters * Three Milliners from Bath * A State of Dependence * Love's First Phantasies * The German Experiment *
Part Two: The Lakers * A Plaited Nest * Phantoms and Chimeras * Prejudice and Prepossession *
Part Three: The Triad * Lost Children * Dobrizhoffered * The Legacy of Genius * From Poetry to Prose