William Wordsworth
7 April: Born to John and Anne (Cookson) Wordsworth, second of five.
Mother dies; William goes to Hawkshead Grammar School.
Father dies.
Goes up to St. John's College, Cambridge.
An Evening Walk, his first long poem.
Walking tour of France, Switzerland, and Germany.
Graduates; goes to France. Becomes enamored with the French Republican Movement. Meets and has an affair with Annette Vallon.
Daughter Caroline born.
Returns to England to earn money; Anglo-French War prevents his return to France until 1802. Descriptive Sketches. Supports Caroline and Annette as best he can throughout his life.
Reunited with his sister, Dorothy.
Inherits legacy of £900. Meets Coleridge.
William and his Dorothy move to Alfoxden to be near Coleridge.
Lyrical Ballads published.
The Wordsworths travel to Germany with Coleridge.
William and Dorothy settle in the Lake district, at Dove Cottage, Grasmere.
Lyrical Ballads revised, and a preface is added. As an independent document, the preface is the touchstone for Romanticism in English literature.
Visits the Vallons at Calais. After receiving a much-delayed inheritance, marries Mary Hutchinson. Sonnets Dedicated to National Independence and Liberty.
Son John born. (Four more children by 1810.)
The Prelude finished. Brother John lost at sea.
Poems in Two Volumes.
The Convention of Cintra.
Quarrel with Coleridge over C's opium addiction.
Children Thomas and Caroline die.
Moves to Rydal Mount, between Grasmere and Rydal Water; appointed Distributor of Stamps for Westmorland (£400/year).
The Excursion.
The White Doe of Rylstone; Preface to Lyrical Ballads revised.
Peter Bell and The Waggoner.
We Are Seven and The River Duddon (sonnets).
Ecclesiastical Sketches.
Yarrow Revisited, and Other Poems.
Tours the Rhineland with Coleridge.
Oxford confers honorary Doctor of Civil Law degree.
Poems, Chiefly of Early and Late Years.
Named Poet Laureate.
Daughter Dora dies.
23 April: dies. The Prelude.
which was once so bright
Be now for ever taken from my sight,
Though nothing can bring back the hour
Of splendour in the grass,
of glory in the flower,
We will grieve not, rather find
Strength in what remains behind.