BIB_ID
119224
Accession number
MA 101.6
Creator
Wordsworth, William, 1770-1850.
Display Date
undated [after 1840 Jan. 15].
Description
1 item (5 p., with address) ; 18.5 and 22.6 cm
Notes
Address panel with seal and addressed to "Thos Powell Esqre / Leadenhall St."
Gill dates this letter to "late 1839," but Powell's inscription presenting Paradise Lost to Wordsworth is dated January 15, 1840.
Letter is written in the hand of Mary Wordsworth.
Part of a collection of 15 letters and manuscripts of William Wordsworth. Items in the collection have been described individually; see collection-level record for MA 101 for more information.
The copy of Paradise Lost given by Powell to Wordsworth is inscribed "To William Wordsworth, Esq. from his attached and faithful friend, Thomas Powell, Jan. 15, 1840." Both of Wordsworth's copies of Paradise Lost are now at the New York Public Library.
Gill dates this letter to "late 1839," but Powell's inscription presenting Paradise Lost to Wordsworth is dated January 15, 1840.
Letter is written in the hand of Mary Wordsworth.
Part of a collection of 15 letters and manuscripts of William Wordsworth. Items in the collection have been described individually; see collection-level record for MA 101 for more information.
The copy of Paradise Lost given by Powell to Wordsworth is inscribed "To William Wordsworth, Esq. from his attached and faithful friend, Thomas Powell, Jan. 15, 1840." Both of Wordsworth's copies of Paradise Lost are now at the New York Public Library.
Summary
Apologizing for his delay in writing; enclosing (not present) his letter to Dr. Thomas Smith about a projected Sanatorium. Expressing pleasure at the news that Powell "enter[s] so warmly into the Chaucerian project" and saying he is glad that Leigh Hunt "is disposed to give his valuable aid to it." Offering his versions of the Prioresses Tale, the Cuckoo and the Nightinglae, the Manciples Tale and a "small portion" of Troilus and Cressida and discussing his strategy to modernize those poems; expressing his "reverence" and "admiration" for Chaucer; reflecting on Dryden's modernization of The Knight's Tale [in his Fables, 1700]. Thanking him for a first edition of Milton's Paradise Lost, noting that he could not have accepted it if he did not already have a copy and noting that Powell's copy "shall take its place on my bookshelves by its side"; discussing Margaret Gillie's portrait of Mary Wordsworth and her profile picture on ivory of himself. Reporting that Mary wordsworth is "quite well again" and sending regards.
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