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© Wendy Bardsley 2014
Wordsworth’s Women
WORDSWORTH’S WOMEN is a sequel to Wordsworth in Chains, following on from Wordsworth’s departure from France during the French revolution at the time of the September massacres. Despite his love for the alluring Annette Vallon, a royalist, who he has left pregnant with his child, he must now live in England until the wars have ended and he can return to see her once again, and for the first time ever, Caroline, his daughter. A full ten years are to pass before this can happen.
On renting a cottage with his sister, Dorothy, he begins a friendship with Samuel Taylor Coleridge, a brilliant poet and speaker, and they work together on their poetry.
Wordsworth’s torment over Annette, as he falls in love with Mary Hutchinson, his childhood sweetheart, is the main theme of the novel. The story explores his relationships with the various women in his life, the way they are drawn to him and his different love experiences, while he is constantly challenged by the ever tempestuous Coleridge.