Editor’s note: Given the enduring norm in editions such as this of presenting a writer’s works chronologically, Dorothy Wordsworth’s commonplace book poems pose a challenge. Not only is it impossible to know whether the order in which the poems appear in DCMS 120 corresponds with their order of composition, but we also have no means to ascertain the precise temporal relationship between material copied into the opposite ends of the notebook. Therefore, rather than attempt to order the poems by date or impose any single organizational scheme upon a notebook that was never intended to reach the public, we present here two models for working through the poems:

 

Table of contents 1 shows how, like the typical commonplace book, DCMS 120 intermingles the author’s own creative work or personal reflections with miscellaneous quotations, recipes, and extracts. This table therefore captures a core feature of this notebook that gets obscured in our reading text, which transcribes only Dorothy’s original poems. It also highlights the fact that this notebook is an ambigraph—or a book that begins on either end (see this section’s introduction)—by dividing its contents into two parts. Table 1A lists texts that appear right-side up when one reads from the front cover. Conversely, Table 1B lists those written in the other direction, and hence read by flipping the book over and beginning from the back cover.

 

Table of contents 2 instead lists just the poems, clustering together different versions of the same text but otherwise presenting them in their order of appearance in DCMS 120. Studying alternate versions of her poems offers a clearer understanding of both the nature of Dorothy’s revisions and the types of poems she repeatedly reworked. While, for ease in referencing, we have labeled variant texts according to their sequence in DCMS 120 (e.g., Version A, Version B, etc.), we caution against assuming earlier versions of poems appear earlier in the notebook. Readers should also be aware that a degree of editorial judgment has gone into grouping together texts, as some poems appearing under a single title contain major variants. For example, “Lines intended for my Niece’s Album” (12, 13)—a poem Dorothy wrote for her namesake, Dora—was drafted or copied first into DCMS 120. It appears in both a 5-stanza and a 12-stanza version (with considerable differences between the shared stanzas). These two versions exist because Dorothy marks the first seven stanzas in the 12-stanza version (see fig. 6B.1) as “Not to be put in this album,” a puzzling note in a poem that has been written explicitly for that purpose, especially since the rejected stanzas contain no obviously unacceptable material. A similar gesture is found in “Lines intended for Edith Southey’s album,” in which “Not intended for the Album” is penciled at the top of the second page of the poem. What these notes about excisions suggest is that Dorothy was highly cognizant of the need to modify her poems for different audiences, as her concern may have been that the poems would have a wider circulation when copied in her niece’s and Edith’s albums. It also suggests that she exercised control over who saw this manuscript notebook. We also find Dorothy returning to some poems, especially “Grasmere—A Fragment” (four versions), “Lines written (rather say begun)” (seven versions), and “Loving & Liking” (three versions), repeatedly, revising various sections, sometimes only individual stanzas or lines. To say therefore that they are “versions” of the same poem may, in some cases, be overstating the case.

Explanation of column headers

 

Foliation: the text’s place in DCMS 120, numbered consecutively from the start and with r and v indicating whether it appears on the recto (the front of an unbound sheet, or the right-hand page of a codex) or verso side (the back of a sheet, or left-hand page when bound) of the notebook.

 

Text at Top of Page: either the title of the text at the head of the page or, when it continues from the previous page, its opening phrase.

 

Poems #: the poem’s number (based on the sequence of DCMS 120) in this edition’s transcription. Each separate instance of a poem as it appears in DCMS 120 is numbered sequentially.

 

Version: poems that appear in multiple versions are also named as separate versions, with Version A, Version B, and so on indicating their sequential appearance in DCMS 120.

 

Poem Title: Each poem is given a name. In cases in which there is only one version, it is Dorothy’s title or, for untitled poems, the first line in quotation marks and square brackets. If there are multiple versions of a poem, we treat the title first used in DCMS 120 as the standard.

 

Hand: the person in whose hand the text has been written (DW = Dorothy Wordsworth, Dora = Dora Wordsworth, SH = Sara Hutchinson, JH = Joanna Hutchinson, EH = Elizabeth Hutchinson).

Note on Inserts/Patches:

We use the insert numbers assigned by the Wordsworth Trust. These capture most of the separate sheets pasted into the notebook, and some but not all of the patches Dorothy added to her poems while revising. As a result, inserts and patches are sometimes denoted by insert numbers, and sometimes are described only as inserts/patches with the relevant folio given to describe where they are added and, usually, how they are attached. In the transcription document, all patches have been separately transcribed, where possible, showing what is written on the original page and what has been pasted on top.