| Romantic Circles

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William Green, The Tourist’s New Guide. Green, a surveyor, artist, and engraver, was a friend of Wordsworth known for his
many prints of the Lake District. His extensively illustrated two-volume guidebook,
which first appeared in 1819, was a natural extension of the artwork he had done in
the Lakes over the previous decade.

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Built of slate in dry stone walling technique, the bridge today is a Grade II listed building. Photo: Tony Bennett, geograph.org.uk.

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In “Section Third” of the Guide, Wordsworth elaborates at some length on his reasons
for opposing the spread of larch plantations in Cumbria.

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Now a four-star hotel, Storrs Hall was built on the banks of Windermere in the 1790s. At the time of the Guide’s writing, it was the country seat of Wordsworth’s friend John Bolton. Photo: Jean and Martin Norgate, Old Cumbria Gazetteer.

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Joseph Nollekens (1737–1823) was the leading English sculptor of the late eighteenth century. The work Wordsworth praises marks the tomb of Lady Maria Howard of Corby Castle, who died giving birth to a stillborn daughter in 1789. Commissioned by her husband, it was completed and installed in 1806. The monument inspired two Wordsworth sonnets in 1833: “Monument of Mrs. Howard” and “Suggested by the Forgoing.” Photo: Ashley Columbus, Wikimedia Commons.

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One of the earliest railway viaducts in Britain, the Wetheral Viaduct in Corby was built between 1830 and 1834. Photo: Eleanor Graham, Wikimedia Commons.

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Thomas West, A Guide to the Lakes. The first edition of this popular guidebook appeared in 1778, but it was already
in its ninth edition when Wordsworth began work on what became his Guide to the Lakes. After West died in 1779, William Cockin took up the task of updating and reissuing
his guidebook from the second edition forward.

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The modern Conishead Priory is a Victorian Gothic building, home to a Kadampa Buddhist community since 1976. The previous structure was demolished in 1821. Illustration: print from Thomas Allen’s Lancashire Illustrated (London, 1832), between p. 34 and p. 35. Courtesy of HathiTrust.

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Photo: Rachel Wise.

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Wordsworth refers to the sands of Morecambe Bay, a large expanse of intertidal mudflats, some 190 square miles of which become exposed at extreme low tides. People have been traversing the estuary for centuries, and accounts of the sometimes-treacherous crossing appear in guidebooks known to Wordsworth. Photo: a view of the Sands near Ulverston (Paul Westover). See also note to p. ix.