Guide to the Lakes, William Wordsworth's travelers' guidebook to England's Lake District, has been studied by scholars both for its relationship to his Romantic poetry and as an early influence on nineteenth-century geography. Originally written because Wordsworth needed money, the first version was published in 1810 as anonymous text in a collection of engravings.[1] The work is now best known from its expanded and updated 1835 fifth edition.
Publishing history edit
The beauty of the Lake District was already well-known in 1810, the year Wordsworth's guide to the lakes was first published, as an anonymous introduction to a book of engravings of the Lake District by the Reverend Joseph Wilkinson.[2] For example, in 1775 the poet Thomas Gray published a journal of his visit to the area, describing the vale of Grasmere as "an unsuspected paradise."[3] The first Lakeland visitors' guide (as opposed to a traveler's journal) appeared in 1778, when Thomas West published a route for travelers that included advice on viewing the landscape.[3]
Wordsworth explained his goal to a reader in May 1810, saying, "What I wished to accomplish was to give a model of the manner in which topographical descriptions ought to be executed, in order to their being either useful or intelligible, by evolving truly and distinctly one appearance from another."[4]
In 1820, Wordsworth published a second, longer version of the Guide attached to his Duddon sonnets.[5] In 1822, Wordsworth's text was first published as a separate volume.[3] Fourth and fifth revised editions followed in 1823 and 1835; the last of these is generally considered definitive.[5]
Modern editions are based on the expanded fifth edition, published in 1835.[2]
Organization edit
- Directions and information for the tourist
Relevant quote from Wordsworth's text:
"In preparing this Manual, it was the Author's principal wish to furnish a Guide or Companion for the Minds of Persons of taste, and feeling for Landscape, who might be inclined to explore the District of the Lakes with that degree of attention to which its beauty may fairly lay claim. For the more sure attainment, however, of this primary object, he will begin by undertaking the humble and tedious task of supplying the Tourist with directions how to approach the several scenes in their best, or most convenient, order."
- Description of the scenery of the lakes
- View of the country as formed by nature
- View of the country as affected by its inhabitants
- Changes and rules of taste for preventing their bad effects
- Miscellaneous observations
- Excursions
- Ode ("The pass of Kirkstone")
- Itinerary
References edit
- ^ Stillinger, Jack (2005). "Tintern Abbey, Tourism, and Romantic Landscape". The Norton Anthology of English Literature: The Romantic Period. http://www.wwnorton.com/college/english/nael/romantic/topic_1/guide.htm: WW Norton. ISBN 0393927202.
{{cite book}}: External link in|location= - ^ a b Simon Akam (June 6, 2010). "Wordsworth's Lake District, 200 years on". Washington Post. Retrieved 2011-05-31.
There are modern editions in print, but they're of the expanded fifth edition of 1835. I needed the original 1810 text, written as an anonymous introduction to a volume of Lakeland engravings by a provincial cleric, the Rev. Joseph Wilkinson.
- ^ a b c "Guidebooks and travel literature". Wordsworth Trust. Retrieved 2011-05-31.
Travel literature of the Lake District developed as the eighteenth century progressed. Early published works included descriptions of the area using language of the sublime to describe their author's experiences, comparing landscape views to the works of European artists.
- ^ John R. Nabholtz (1964). "Wordsworth's Guide to the Lakes and the Picturesque Traditio". Modern Philology. 61 (4): 228–297. Retrieved May 31, 2011.
Wordsworth had prepared the Guide to the Lakes in the hope that his work might serve in some way to previous studies of local scenery.
{{cite journal}}: Unknown parameter|month=ignored (help) - ^ a b Ian Whyte (2000). "William Wordsworth's Guide to the Lakes and the geographical tradition". Area. 32 (1). Blackwell Publishing Ltd: 1475–4762. Retrieved May 31, 2011.
Wordsworth's Guide to the Lakes has not been considered in the context of the development of geography in Britain during the early nineteenth century. This paper examines its distinctive approach to the description and analysis of landscape and locates it within the literature of geography, arguing that it was one of the first systematic geographical studies of a region within the British Isles.
External links edit
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