← Table of contents
Literary Celebrities of the English Lake-District

Introductory material

Reading edition

Dove Cottage, Grasmere (Frontispiece) i

Thomas De Quincey 2

The Knoll, Ambleside 20

Brantwood, Coniston Lake 28

John Ruskin in Old Age 64

The House at Herne Hill in which Ruskin was Born in 1819 74

Medallion on the Ruskin Memorial, Derwentwater 83

Samuel Taylor Coleridge 84

Nab Cottage, Rydal 94

Wine Street, Bristol 102

Southey's Monument in Crosthwaite Church, Keswick 112

Joseph Cottle, of Bristol 112

Old Brathay 122

Charles Lloyd and his Wife 129

Elleray, Windermere 130

View of Windermere 166

Yewdale 187

Hawkeshead, from Esthwaite Water 203

Fox How, Ambleside 212

Burneside Hall, near Kendal 222

Swarthmore Hall, Ulverstone 233

GRASMERE AND DOVE COTTAGE

'Once I absolutely went forwards from Coniston to the very verge of Hammerscar, from which the whole Vale of Grasmere suddenly breaks upon the view in a style of almost theatrical surprise, with its lovely valley stretching before the eye in the distance, the lake lying immediately below, with its solemn ark-like island of four and a half acres in size seemingly floating on its surface, and its exquisite outline on the opposite shore, revealing all its little bays and wild sylvan margins, feathered to the edge with wild flowers and ferns. In one quarter, a little wood, stretching for about half a mile towards the outlet of the lake; more directly in opposition to the spectator, a few green fields; and beyond them, just two bowshots from the water, a little white cottage gleaming from the midst of trees, with a vast and seemingly never-ending series of ascents, rising above it to the height of more than three thousand feet. That little cottage was Wordsworth's from the time of his marriage, and earlier; in fact, from the beginning of the century to the year 1808. Afterwards, for many a year it was mine.'—Thomas De Quincey: Autobiographic Sketches

THOMAS DE QUINCEY.
THOMAS DE QUINCEY.

THOMAS DE QUINCEY

By A. C. Lucchesi.

Enlarge image

Explore with AITake your curiosity a little further.

Reading settings