The overshadowed but talented Dorothy Wordsworth

William Wordsworth was born 250 years ago but less well known is his sister and companion Dorothy, an outstanding writer.

I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud was inspired by a walk the siblings took along the banks of Ullswater in the Lake District on April 15, 1802. As Dorothy wrote, their walk started on a “threatening, misty morning — but mild”, before the weather grew more menacing. “The wind seized our breath the lake was rough,” she recorded in her journal. “We rested again and again. The bays were stormy, and we heard the waves at different distances and in the middle of the water like the sea.” Then they came across a magnificent stretch of daffodils. “I never saw daffodils so beautiful they grew