The Acts of Writing and Reading Mary and Dorothy Wordsworth’s 1820 Continental Travel Journals
The Acts of Writing and Reading Mary and Dorothy Wordsworth’s 1820 Continental Travel Journals

An Intertextual Perspective

Author(s): Magdalena Ożarska
Subject(s): Cultural history, Studies of Literature, Theory of Literature, British Literature
Published by: Wydawnictwa Uniwersytetu Warszawskiego
Keywords: William Wordsworth; Dorothy Wordsworth; Mary Wordsworth; travel journal; reading autobiography
Summary/Abstract: In July 1820, William, Dorothy and Mary Wordsworth, set out for the Continent in order to retrace the itinerary of William’s youthful trip, documented in "The Prelude". During the tour, Dorothy and Mary kept travel journals. Dorothy’s was first edited and published by Ernest de Selincourt in 1941; Mary’s remained in manuscript until recently. The two journals are very different. Mary’s journal repeatedly relies on Dorothy’s to provide details of their shared experience, while the only reference that Dorothy ever makes to Mary’s writing is in connection with an inkbottle that Mary wants to buy in Interlaken, Switzerland. Readers of the two journals include the two diarists themselves, William Wordsworth, Henry Crabb Robinson, Sarah Hutchinson and Dora Wordsworth. Soon, the readers’ circle expands to include more friends and acquaintances. This paper discusses the intertextual relationships between these travel diaries as well as their reception by their first readers.

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