William Wordsworth (1770-1850) was born in the Lake District of England in 1770, the second of five children. The Lake District countryside, as well as later walking trips of continental Europe, greatly influenced his later poetry. In 1791, his interest in the French Revolution brought him to France, where he met Anne Vallon and fathered a child out of wedlock with her. Hardly able to support himself abroad, Wordsworth soon returned to England and was kept from returning to France for nine years during the Anglo-French war. In 1795, Wordsworth and his sister, who became his living companion, met Samuel Taylor Coleridge and the two poets began collaborations in poetry that resulted in Lyrical Ballads (1798), which was credited for introducing British readers to romanticism. With growing success in writing, Wordsworth secured a small office job and was married. Towards the end of his life he was awarded honorary doctors from Durham University and Oxford University. Wordsworth became poet laureate in 1843.
Major works by William Wordsworth
An Evening Walk (1789)
Descriptive Sketches (1793)
Lyrical Ballads (1798)
Poems in Two Volumes (1807)
The Excursion (1814)
Ecclesiastical Sketches (1822)
The Prelude (1850)
William Wordsworth and the Web
This is a great site from the Victorian Web with extensive research materials on Wordsworth.
The University of Oregon presents this complete etext of Wordsworth’s Lyrical Ballads.
This page on Wordsworth offers a biography and several poems in etext.