The gang : Coleridge, the Hutchinsons and the Wordsworths in 1802 / by John Worthen

New Haven, Conn. : Yale University Press, 2001. First Edition. Hardcover. An exceptional copy; fine in an equally fine dw, now mylar-sleeved. Particularly and surprisingly well-preserved; tight, bright, clean and especially sharp-cornered. Literally as new.; 344 pages; Description: viii, 344 p., 16 p. of plates : ill. ; 24 cm. Includes index. Subjects: Poets, English --19th century --Biography. Summary: Over a dramatic six-month period in 1802, William Wordsworth, S. T. Coleridge, Wordsworth's sister Dorothy, and the two Hutchinson sisters Sara and Mary formed a close-knit group whose members saw or wrote to one another constantly. Coleridge, whose marriage was collapsing, was in love with Sara, and Wordsworth was about to be married to Mary, who would be moving in beside Dorothy in their Grasmere cottage. Throughout this extraordinary period both poets worked on some of their finest and most familiar poems, Coleridge's Dejection: An Ode and Wordsworth's Immortality Ode. In this fascinating book, John Worthen recreates the group's intertwined lives and the effect they had on one another. Drawing on the group's surviving letters, and poems, as well as Dorothy's diaries, Worthen throws new light on many old problems.