Dorothy Wordsworth had no ambitions to be a public author, yet she left behind numerous letters, diary entries, topographical descriptions, poems, and other writings.

[3] Dorothy dedicated her time to domestic duties and corresponded regularly to her brother William and her childhood friend, Jane Pollard.

[4] William spent six weeks in Forncett at the end of 1790, during which time the Wordsworth siblings began their enduring practice of undertaking long walks together.

[6] It was during this period that Dorothy was introduced to the poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge, whom William had briefly encountered two years prior, and from here the trio developed a close friendship.

Coleridge wrote of Dorothy's character in a letter to his publisher: "Her information various—her eye watchful in minutest observation of nature".

[7] In July of 1797, despite facing financial constraints, Dorothy and William Wordsworth relocated to Alfoxton House in Somerset, a short distance from their new acquaintance Coleridge's residence.

Among the collection is Wordsworth's famous poem "Tintern Abbey," inspired by their walking tour through Wye Valley in July 1798.

Dorothy's Grasmere Journal, first published in 1897 and edited by William Angus Knight, provides a glimpse into their life during this period.

It recounts their countryside walks and offers detailed portraits of notable literary figures of the early 19th century, such as Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Sir Walter Scott, Charles Lamb, and Robert Southey.

The Grasmere journals are considered fragmentary in nature and were originally intended for an audience consisting mainly of William and a select few close friends and family members.

Despite battling a degenerative illness, Dorothy continued writing, including compositions later published in William Wordsworth's collections.

He drew inspiration from Dorothy's journal entry of the sibling's encounter with a field of daffodils:[22] I never saw daffodils so beautiful they grew among the mossy stones about and about them, some rested their heads upon these stones as on a pillow for weariness and the rest tossed and reeled and danced and seemed as if they verily laughed with the wind that blew upon them over the lake, they looked so gay ever glancing ever changing.In his poem, "I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud," William describes what appears to be the shared experience in the journal as his own solitary observation.