Editing William Wordsworth (section)

===Autobiographical work and ''Poems, in Two Volumes''===
Wordsworth had for years been making plans to write a long philosophical poem in three parts, which he intended to call ''The Recluse''.<ref>{{Cite web |title=William Wordsworth {{!}} The Asian Age Online, Bangladesh |url=http://dailyasianage.com/news/118185/?regenerate |access-date=2022-06-23 |website=The Asian Age |language=en}}</ref> In 1798–99 he started an autobiographical poem, which he referred to as the "[[The Prelude|poem to Coleridge]]" and which he planned would serve as an appendix to a larger work called ''The Recluse''. In 1804, he began expanding this autobiographical work, having decided to make it a prologue rather than an appendix.<ref>{{Cite web |date=2021-11-18 |title=William Wordsworth – English History |url=https://englishhistory.net/poets/william-wordsworth/ |access-date=2022-06-23 |language=en-US}}</ref> He completed this work, now generally referred to as the first version of ''[[The Prelude]]'', in 1805, but refused to publish such a personal work until he had completed the whole of ''The Recluse''. The death of his brother John, also in 1805, affected him strongly and may have influenced his decisions about these works.<ref>{{Cite journal |last1=O&#39 |first1=John |last2=Meara |date=2011-01-01 |title=This Life, This Death: Wordsworth's Poetic Destiny |url=https://www.academia.edu/38066667 |journal=IUniverse, Bloomington IN}}</ref>
[[File:Rydal Mount - geograph.org.uk - 959824.jpg|thumb|right|[[Rydal Mount]] – home to Wordsworth 1813–1850. Hundreds of visitors came here to see him over the years]]
Wordsworth's philosophical allegiances, as articulated in ''[[The Prelude]]'' and in such shorter works as "[[Lines written a few miles above Tintern Abbey]]" have been a source of critical debate. It was long supposed that Wordsworth relied chiefly on Coleridge for philosophical guidance. However, scholars have recently suggested that Wordsworth's ideas may have been formed years before he and Coleridge became friends in the mid-1790s. In particular, while he was in revolutionary Paris in 1792, the 22-year-old Wordsworth met the mysterious traveller [[John "Walking" Stewart]] (1747–1822),<ref>[[Kelly Grovier]], "Dream Walker: A Wordsworth Mystery Solved", ''[[Times Literary Supplement]]'', 16 February 2007</ref> who was nearing the end of his thirty years of wandering, on foot, from [[Madras]], India, through [[Persia]] and [[Arabia]], across Africa and Europe, and up through the fledgling United States. By the time of their association, Stewart had published an ambitious work of original materialist philosophy entitled ''The Apocalypse of Nature'' (London, 1791), to which many of Wordsworth's philosophical sentiments may well be indebted.

In 1807, Wordsworth published ''[[Poems, in Two Volumes]]'', including "[[Ode: Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood]]". Until now, Wordsworth was known only for ''Lyrical Ballads'', and he hoped this new collection would cement his reputation. Its reception was lukewarm.

In 1810, Wordsworth and Coleridge were estranged over the latter's opium addiction,<ref name=webbio/> and in 1812, his son Thomas died at the age of 6, six months after the death of 3-year-old Catherine. The following year, he received an appointment as Distributor of Stamps for Westmorland, and the stipend of £400 a year made him financially secure, albeit at the cost of political independence. In 1813, he and his family, including Dorothy, moved to [[Rydal Mount]], [[Ambleside]] (between Grasmere and Rydal Water), where he spent the rest of his life.<ref name=webbio/>