William Wordsworth (April 7, 1770 – April 23, 1850) was a major
English romantic poet who, with Samuel Taylor Coleridge, helped launch the Romantic
Age in English literature with their 1798 joint publication, Lyrical Ballads.
Wordsworth's masterpiece is generally considered to be The Prelude, an
autobiographical poem of his early years that was revised and expanded a number
of times. It was never published during his lifetime, and was only given the
title after his death. Up until this time it was generally known as the poem
"to Coleridge". Wordsworth was England's Poet Laureate from 1843
until his death in 1850.

There are
many ideas associated with ‘Romantic’ poetry, but one of the most
important for Wordsworth was to show the link between human experience and the
natural world.

Wordsworth
loved and drew inspiration from this landscape of the Lake
District, his home. Today we hope that the importance of place has
been retained: that interacting with Wordsworth’s work, in the place it
was created, allows the freshness of the original inspiration to live.