Radical Wordsworth: The Poet Who Changed the World

On the 250th anniversary of Wordsworth’s birth comes an “appealing new biography... [that] illuminates Wordsworth’s poetic originality” (Brad Leithauser, Wall Street Journal)

“The finest modern introduction to [Wordsworth's] work, life and impact. It shows how and why ‘Wordsworth made a difference.’”—Boyd Tonkin, Financial Times

Named a Favorite Book of 2020 by The Progressive

Published in time for the 250th anniversary of William Wordsworth’s birth, this is the biography of a great poetic genius, a revolutionary who changed the world. Wordsworth rejoiced in the French Revolution and played a central role in the cultural upheaval that we call the Romantic Revolution.

He and his fellow Romantics changed forever the way we think about childhood, the sense of the self, our connection to the natural environment, and the purpose of poetry. But his was also a revolutionary life in the old sense of the word, insofar as his art was of memory, the return of the past, the circling back to childhood and youth. This beautifully written biography is purposefully fragmentary, momentary, and selective, opening up what Wordsworth called “the hiding-places of my power.”