"The Recluse" / William Wordsworth

Available March 29, 2013 / US$1.30 / Poetry/British Literature

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"I have written 706 lines of a poem which I hope to make of considerable utility. Its title will be, 'The Recluse, or Views of Nature, Man, and Society'."

So wrote William Wordsworth, the renowned British poet, in a 1798 letter to colleague James Losh. Planned as his magnum opus—and intended as a three-part philosophical poem—"The Recluse" was developed on and off during the early 19th century without ever being completed. (Only the second part, "The Excursion", was published.) Its original introduction, an autobiographical poem called "The Prelude", surfaced after his death.

"The Recluse" recounts the experiences of Wordsworth and his wife Dorothy, as they return from a trip across Germany and prepare for a new life in the vicinity of Cumbria's Lake Grasmere. Within its lines, he sees his surroundings as a paradise not unlike Eden. Indeed, he even touted the poem as his own answer to Milton's "Paradise Lost".

This Constitution reprint contains the text of the 1888 Macmillan edition, plus an 1889 review of Wordsworth collections from the Atheneum, and a biography which details the poem's historical and thematic background.

For the first time in standalone form on Kindle, an unfinished masterpiece unmatched by any other in British poetry.

(Exclusively at Amazon's Kindle Store)

(This work is in the public domain worldwide.)