William Wordsworth's version of his youth in The Prelude, an epic-length poem "on the growth of my own mind," is certainly well known, but what does it really tell us about the poet's youth and early adulthood? Kenneth R. Johnston, who has devoted much of his academic career to the romantic poets, particularly Wordsworth, sifts through the other available evidence and demonstrates that the poet suppressed as much, perhaps more, of his personal history as he revealed in the deliberate crafting of his literary identity.

The most fascinating material for some readers will be Johnston's (ably supported) hypotheses about several periods during the 1790s when Wordsworth's presence cannot be fully accounted for. For nearly half of 1793, for example, the poet is supposed to be "quietly sitting down" in Wales, but there's good reason to suspect that he is actually in Paris, re-establishing contact with his French mistress, Annette Vallon. Then, six years later, he and his sister disappear in southern Germany for over a month--and the secret account books of the home secretary, who controlled funds for the secret service, show a payment made out to a "Wordsworth" shortly afterwards.

Was one of the founders of English romanticism actually a British spy? Admittedly, we may never know for sure. But Johnston's account is very convincingly constructed; it fits what can be known without requiring great leaps of imagination. As such, it forces us to re-evaluate everything we've ever believed about Wordsworth and his poems. Fortunately, Johnston is as capable a literary critic as he is biographer.


From Publishers Weekly
Wordsworth tried to evade close scrutiny of his life by creating a more sanitized version of it in The Prelude. If this study of almost 1000 pages is anything to judge by, there's much more to Wordsworth than previously imagined. Johnston delves deep into the poetry and historical sources. Much of what is new is the result of research into government archives in Britain and France, Wordsworth's university records and personal letters of Wordsworth's intimates. Although the volume concentrates only on Wordsworth's early life (approximately the same period covered by The Prelude), the young Wordsworth emerges as a fiery soul, one perfectly situated to shine among his Romantic counterparts. Johnston shows that Wordsworth was more closely aligned with radical Jacobins than has been previously thought. We also learn that financial difficulties may have led Wordsworth to serve the Foreign Office as a minor spy on his trip to Hamburg. Also, Johnston puts to rest the idea that Wordsworth was uninterested in sex by discussing his familiarity with prostitutes at Cambridge and revealing a small but intriguing list of Wordsworth's love interests. But Johnston tends to wallow in encyclopedic detail of questionable interest (e.g., on November 30, 1791, Wordsworth changed money "at the excellent rate of 643 livres for [20 pounds]"). Making the book doubly dense are Johnston's frequent comparisons of The Prelude to historical fact, which can be useful, but seem like a separate book altogether. Still, there is plenty of interesting, fresh detail among the expendable bits. Photos not seen by PW. Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.


From Library Journal
From the Lyrical Ballads to the epic poem Prelude, Wordsworth expresses the "natural supernaturalism" and the radical individualism of the Romantic movement. In exhaustive, and sometimes exhausting, detail, Johnston (English, Indiana Univ.) combines newly available materials and close readings of the Prelude to chronicle Wordsworth's life from 1770 to 1807. Johnston offers a portrait of the young Wordsworth as a master at hiding his self-identity in his poetry and convincingly demonstrates that the gaps in Prelude point to chapters in Wordsworth's life, e.g., his affair with Annette Vallon, who bore him a child, and the mysterious silence surrounding the "five long years" (1793-98), which the poet cleverly concealed from his public. With over 900 pages dedicated to Wordsworth's early life, Johnston's book exemplifies all the excess of contemporary scholarly, and popular, biography. Yet his often riveting prose and his engaging readings of the poems will lure devotees of Wordsworth and British Romanticism. Recommended for larger collections.?Henry L. Carrigan Jr., Westerville P.L., OHCopyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.


The New York Times Book Review, Hermione Lee
...Johnston's staggering industriousness did draw me in, though he did not make me like Wordsworth any more than before...


The Economist
What is special about this new study ... is that it focuses on Wordsworth's youth.... It thrusts Wordsworth back into the confusing, gritty and dangerous political and social culture of Europe in the age of the French revolution and the Napoleonic wars.


The Los Angeles Times Sunday Book Review, John Gross
The book as a whole has the limitations of its chosen aim: It tells you more about where the mature Wordsworth was coming from than about what he was. But within its limits, it paints a convincing portrait, and--almost the highest praise I can think of--it justifies its length. There were times, taking a break from reading it, when I resented the hundreds of pages still stretching ahead. But whenever I got back to it, I was quickly won over again by the sheer fascination of the detail and by the feeling that I was being brought remarkably close to the grain of Wordsworth's life.


The Boston Globe, Robert Taylor
Among the group of poets called Romantic, Wordsworth seems least suited to a James Bond role. (That was destined for Byron.) Wordsworth and his sister Dorothy are the essence of domesticity. Look closer, though, as Johnston ... has done in his mammoth and fascinating The Hidden Wordsworth. Instead of seeing Our Nature Poet, a man of genius who spent his old age trying to conceal his youthful passions, one will discover a contrary image.


From Kirkus Reviews
As admirers of William Wordsworth's epochal Lyrical Ballads celebrate that volume's bicentennial, this conscientious yet surprise-filled life of the poet will deepen their appreciation of his accomplishments. Johnston (English/Indiana Univ.) concentrates on Wordsworth's (17701850) young adulthood, linking the poetry of his ``great decade'' (17971807) to his political and sexual coming-of-age during the Age of Revolution. Such links between Wordsworth and his tumultuous times are not new. But Johnston judiciously presents what was already known (at least to scholars) while uncovering striking new facets of Wordsworth's life, some heretofore buried in archives, some hidden in plain sightin the lines of his poetry, for example. Johnston's opening chapters detail the Wordsworth family's situation as agents of powerful landed interests and the future poet's school days amid the natural wonders of England's Lake District. Orphaned, the teenage Wordsworth became the ward of conservative family elders against whom he rebelled. His studies became increasingly desultory, his extracurricular rambles more adventurous. In 1790, he left Cambridge University to travel in Europe, where he exulted in the climate of revolution. Wordsworth then lived in France for a time, fathering a child out of wedlock. Back in England, he became an intimate of London Radical circles; Johnston suggests that he returned yet again to France amid the Terror to visit his threatened mistress and their child. Johnston's chapters on Wordsworth's financial woes and resulting rapprochement with Britain's conservative ruling elite feature a convincingalthough sure to be controversialargument that Wordsworth served as a British agent in Germany in 1799. Meanwhile, Johnston explores Wordsworth's relations with his sister, Dorothy, with Samuel Taylor Coleridge, and with the other companions who supported him as he fashioned himself into the epic poet of the 1805 Prelude. Although imposing in its length and occasionally ponderous in its manner, this epic biography is full of romance, rebellion, and intrigue, interleaved with expert glosses on many of history's most intriguing poems. (photos) -- Copyright ©1998, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.


Stephen M. Parrish, editor, The Cornell Wordsworth
A wholly new portrait, fleshed out, humanized, and very compelling. . . . Full of fresh information, fresh insights, and fresh intelligent critical readings of the poetry.


European Romantic Review, John Rieder, Winter 1999
[A] great read. It makes itself accessible to general readers without condescending to them and without sacrificing any of the critical sophistication that specialists will be looking for. It is full of information, including eleven maps and close to a hundred illustrations. Its bulk, roughly that of a tripledecker Victorian novel, results from its accomplishment of three interwoven projects, making it in effect three books in one.


Book Description
A surprise-filled biography of the radical young poet whose fiery intellect revolutionized English poetry, The Hidden Wordsworth breaks through the carefully crafted but frequently misleading accounts of his youth that William Wordsworth created in his later years. In this enthralling narrative, the great Romantic poet emerges as a man of action during his youth and early manhood, when, in Wordsworth's own words, "Bliss it was in that dawn to be alive, / But to be young was very heaven!" Kenneth Johnston explores Wordsworth's links with radical British reformists, French revolutionary leaders, and journalists, and, astonishingly, reveals Wordsworth as an agent for the British "Secret Service" on the Continent and at home. Deeply intertwined with his politics, Wordsworth's emotional life has until now been even more deeply buried. Johnston illuminates and freshly interprets Wordsworth's relations with his sister, Dorothy, with his French mistress, Annette Vallon, and with his sister-in-law, Sara Hutchinson. At the same time, The Hidden Wordsworth explores the poet's intense and often destructive relations with a cluster of young writers, leading up to his friendship with Samuel Taylor Coleridge, one of the most productive, if highly fraught, collaborations in literary history. Based on new research in government archives in England and France, school and university records, and intimate letters, The Hidden Wordsworth is a warts-and-all account of a young poet who lived a life even Byron would have envied.


About the Author
Kenneth R. Johnston, chair of the English department at Indiana University, lives in Bloomington, Indiana.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

In this account, Kenneth R. Johnston portrays a Wordsworth different in crucial ways from the one that the poet intended us to know. Taking advantage of unprecedented access to government archives in England and France, family papers, school and university records, and intimate letters, he brings little-known aspects of Wordsworth's life and character to the fore. With its urban revolutions and Alpine scenery, French mistresses and passionate sisters, secret agents, aristocratic ogres, and furious guardian uncles, The Hidden Wordsworth unfolds a life that Byron might have envied. Johnston relates Wordsworth's attempt to cover up these personal details, his systematic and successful efforts to hide his "juvenile errors" from his contemporaries and from history. But they did not disappear: many of them stare us in the face from the lines of his greatest poetry, like purloined letters we have not seen because they are too obvious.

FROM THE CRITICS

Hermione Lee - New York Times Book Review

...Johnston's staggering industriousness did draw me in, though he did not make me like Wordsworth any more....Johnston never lets us see Wordsworth in splendid isolation but always in the thick of his times....[The book's] most thoughtful and impressive aspect....is its account of a young man's self-transformation into a poet.

Publishers Weekly

Wordsworth tried to evade close scrutiny of his life by creating a more sanitized version of it in "The Prelude." If this study of almost 1,000 pages is anything to judge by, there's much more to Wordsworth than previously imagined. Johnston delves deep into the poetry and historical sources. Much of what is new is the result of research into government archives in Britain and France, Wordsworth's university records and personal letters of Wordsworth's intimates. Although the volume concentrates only on Wordsworth's early life (approximately the same period covered by "The Prelude"), the young Wordsworth emerges as a fiery soul, one perfectly situated to shine among his Romantic counterparts. Johnston shows that Wordsworth was more closely aligned with radical Jacobins than has been previously thought. We also learn that financial difficulties may have led Wordsworth to serve the Foreign Office as a minor spy on his trip to Hamburg. Also, Johnston puts to rest the idea that Wordsworth was uninterested in sex by discussing his familiarity with prostitutes at Cambridge and revealing a small but intriguing list of Wordsworth's love interests. But Johnston tends to wallow in encyclopedic detail of questionable interest (e.g., on November 30, 1791, Wordsworth changed money "at the excellent rate of 643 livres for [20 pounds]"). Making the book doubly dense are Johnston's frequent comparisons of The Prelude to historical fact, which can be useful, but seem like a separate book altogether. Still, there is plenty of interesting, fresh detail among the expendable bits.

Library Journal

From the Lyrical Ballads to the epic poem "The Prelude," Wordsworth expresses the "natural supernaturalism" and the radical individualism of the Romantic movement. In exhaustive, and sometimes exhausting, detail, Johnston (English, Indiana Univ.) combines newly available materials and close readings of the Prelude to chronicle Wordsworth's life from 1770 to 1807. Johnston offers a portrait of the young Wordsworth as a master at hiding his self-identity in his poetry and convincingly demonstrates that the gaps in Prelude point to chapters in Wordsworth's life, e.g., his affair with Annette Vallon, who bore him a child, and the mysterious silence surrounding the "five long years" (1793-98), which the poet cleverly concealed from his public. With over 900 pages dedicated to Wordsworth's early life, Johnston's book exemplifies all the excess of contemporary scholarly, and popular, biography. Yet his often riveting prose and his engaging readings of the poems will lure devotees of Wordsworth and British Romanticism. -- Henry L. Carrigan Jr., Westerville P.L., OH

Hermione Lee - The New York Times Book Review

...Johnston's staggering industriousness did draw me in, though he did not make me like Wordsworth any more....Johnston never lets us see Wordsworth in splendid isolation but always in the thick of his times....[The book's] most thoughtful and impressive aspect....is its account of a young man's self-transformation into a poet.

Kirkus Reviews

As admirers of William Wordsworth's epochal Lyrical Ballads celebrate that volume's bicentennial, this conscientious yet surprise-filled life of the poet will deepen their appreciation of his accomplishments. Johnston (English/Indiana Univ.) concentrates on Wordsworth's (1770-1850) young adulthood, linking the poetry of his "great decade" (1797-1807) to his political and sexual coming-of-age during the Age of Revolution. Such links between Wordsworth and his tumultuous times are not new. But Johnston judiciously presents what was already known (at least to scholars) while uncovering striking new facets of Wordsworth's life, some heretofore buried in archives, some hidden in plain sightþin the lines of his poetry, for example. Johnston's opening chapters detail the Wordsworth family's situation as agents of powerful landed interests and the future poet's school days amid the natural wonders of England's Lake District. Orphaned, the teenage Wordsworth became the ward of conservative family elders against whom he rebelled. His studies became increasingly desultory, his extracurricular rambles more adventurous. In 1790, he left Cambridge University to travel in Europe, where he exulted in the climate of revolution. Wordsworth then lived in France for a time, fathering a child out of wedlock. Back in England, he became an intimate of London Radical circles; Johnston suggests that he returned yet again to France amid the Terror to visit his threatened mistress and their child. Johnston's chapters on Wordsworth's financial woes and resulting rapprochement with Britain's conservative ruling elite feature a convincingþalthough sure to be controversialþargument that Wordsworthserved as a British agent in Germany in 1799. Meanwhile, Johnston explores Wordsworth's relations with his sister, Dorothy, with Samuel Taylor Coleridge, and with the other companions who supported him as he fashioned himself into the epic poet of the 1805 þPrelude.þ Although imposing in its length and occasionally ponderous in its manner, this epic biography is full of romance, rebellion, and intrigue, interleaved with expert glosses on many of history's most intriguing poems.