Autograph prose fragment by Thomas De Quincey containing a description of William Wordsworth

Item author: Thomas De Quincey
Item date: 1838
Grant Value: £620
Item cost: £2,480
Item date acquired: 2011
Item institution: Wordsworth Trust, Dove Cottage
Town/City: Grasmere
County: Cumbria

The significance of this manuscript is that it contains the greater part of Thomas De Quincey’s description of William Wordsworth from his celebrated essay, published in Tait’s Edinburgh Magazine between January and April 1839, and later in De Quincey’s Recollections of the Lakes and the Lake Poets.  It is one of few manuscripts from this important work that survive.  It contains minor textual variants, and is typically fragmentary.

Item Provenance
Bonham's 29 March 2011, lot 257