Wordsworth and the Victorians

Wordsworth and the Victorians tells the story of the flowering of Wordsworth's reputation and influence in the Victorian era. Stephen Gill uses a large amount of anecdotal and biographical material to illustrate the various ways in which Wordsworth's reputation was diffused. How poets and novelists such as Matthew Arnold and George Eliot transmitted the Wordsworthian spirit is examined, but so also is the personal testimony of critics, scholars, and ordinary readers, explaining just what Wordsworth's poetry meant to them.