Lot 190

Wordsworth, William - [Mary Wordsworth - Katharine Southey]

£1,700

Rare Books, Manuscripts, Maps & Photography

Auction: 11 January 2017 at 11:00 GMT

Description

A Guide Through the District of the Lakes, in the North of England. Kendal: Hudson & Nicholson, 1835. Fifth edition, small 8vo, presentation copy inscribed at head of title page "Katharine Southey, with the affec. love of M. Wordsworth, 18th June 1848" and signed "K. Southey, Rydal Mount, 1848" at foot of title. Also inscribed on endpaper "Mary Stanger, Fieldside, May 1873, Given to me by Dr. Lietch", and inscribed in ink to the head of the front free endpaper "Bought at Miss Southey's sale at Laithewaite Cottage, August 1864, D.L., presented by Mrs Wordsworth to Miss Southey at Rydal Mount on the 18th June 1848", folding map (torn without loss), original purple cloth, remnants of printed paper title label to spine, cloth worn and faded, corners bumped and spine split with loss to lower bottom half

Footnote

Note: Mary Stanger (1804-90), née Calvert, was a childhood friend of Sara Coleridge and Dora Wordworth, the children of the Romantic poets, who played together at Keswick. Whilst William Wordsworth & Mary Hutchinson (the previous generation) attended the same infant school in Penrith, Mary was also a friend of Dorothy from schooldays. Sara's mother, Sarah, was Coleridge's wife and her sister, Edith Fricker, was married to Southey thus linking the female isde of the Romantic Movement. Mary (Huchinson) Wordworth's (1770-1859) inscription to Katharine Southey is both charming and familiar and Katharine's signature is strong and firm being not yet 40 whilst Mary would have been 78 years old. Dr Lietch, the local Doctor from Keswick was known to Thomas Carlyle's brother Jack (Dr John Aitken) and presumably attended the Lakeland Poets during his long career.

This volume was puchased, in a box, from a house clearance in June 2015, originating in Keswick. Mary Stanger, the final recipient of this book was née Calvert and the box would appear to have been in the possession of the family Moorsom of Keswick.

At the time of Mary's inscription Wordworth would have only two years to live, at Rydal Mount. Southey had died in 1843 and Coleridge in 1834. De Quincey, the great biographer of the Lake District Poets, was to die in the same year as Mary Wordsworth, 1859. Katharine appears never to have married.