WORDSWORTH (WILLIAM, 1770-1850, poet) FINE SET OF WORDSWORTH'S POEMS IN SEVEN VOLUMES INSCRIBED BY HIM 'To Louisa Susan Ricarda Fenwick from her affectionate Friend William Wordsworth Bath, March 23d 1847', seven volumes, some light foxing on endpapers and on portrait in volume 1, a few very minor internal defects, full calf by Hayday, lettering on spine, gilt compartments, one joint splitting, otherwise in fine condition, octavo, Edward Moxon, London, 1846

Louisa Susan Ricarda Fenwick was the niece of Isabella Jane Fenwick, the most important woman in Wordsworth's intellectual circle outside the members of his immediate family. It was Isabella who took down from Wordsworth what are known as the Fenwick Notes to his most celebrated poems, and in some senses filled the gaps left by his sister Dorothy after she became ill and of Dora after her marriage. Wordsworth was more than a little in love with her.

Louisa was joint-hostess with her aunt (then 'poorly - not absolutely ill, but old and feeble') when the Wordsworths stayed between 3 March and 18 April 1847 at the house Isabella had taken in Bath, 8 Queen Square. There was a programme of entertainment, and the visitors included Professor Adam Sedgwick and Sara Coleridge, the poet's daughter and her daughter Edith. Crabb Robinson was also staying at the house and records in his diary that they spent their time playing whist and in 'grave talk'. Otherwise Wordsworth and Crabb Robinson rather tired themselves walking over the heights to Witcombe. It was while he was at Bath that Wordsworth received a request for an 'Ode on the Installation of his Royal Highness Prince Albert as Chancellor of the University of Cambridge' and discussed it with Isabella Fenwick.

Louisa Fenwick was the second daughter of Robert Orde Fenwick (1784-1855) by his wife Louisa née Jones. She later married Robert Elrington, second cousin of Isabella Fenwick's first cousin, Isabella Jane. By 1856 Robert Elrington was rector of Brixham and he and Louisa lived at the Parsonage there.

The binder of this set, Hayday, was James Hayday or Heyday of Lincoln's Inn Fields who was in business from about 1828 to 1859. He was highly regarded and at one time employed 30 or 40 workers. His chief patron was Joseph Walter King Eyton whose library was sold in 1848 and contained a number of Hayday/Heyday bindings, some now in the Huntington Library.

On the poem VIII of 'Poems of the Imagination' in volume II (p. 91, 'Three years she grew in sun and shower...') is the contemporary note in pencil 'Bishop W.K. Hamilton's favourite piece in Wordsworth as giving the key note of the author's mind'. Walter Kerr Hamilton was Bishop of Salisbury between 1854 and 1869.

£2,250