William Wordsworth (1770-1850)
Autograph manuscript signed ('W^m Wordsworth') of the poem 'She dwelt among the untrodden ways', Rydal Mount, 20 February 1837
Complete. 12 lines on one page, 230 x 185mm, inscribed with an autograph note to [Francis F. Courtenay], 6 lines; integral address panel, remnant of seal, seal tear postal marking. Blue cloth slip-case. Provenance: Anderson Galleries, New York, 18 & 19 April 1934, lot 862; Arthur A. Houghton, Jnr. (1906-1990) – his sale, Christie's, 11 & 12 June 1980, Vol. II, lot 541.

One of Wordsworth's most-loved poems.

She lived unknown and few could know
When Lucy ceased to be;
But she is in her grave, and Oh
The difference to me.

Wordsworth's accompanying note reads: 'I send you in my usual hand neither worse nor better the two transcripts you desired – I hope to see your father shortly, but when exactly I know not, as my Daughter whom I was to have attended as far as Leamington is laid up in the influenza'. The second transcription is no longer present. The recipient is Francis Foljambe Courtenay (1820-1872), son of Philip Warner Courtenay (c.1782-1842), Wordsworth's 'man of business' and financial advisor.

First recorded in a letter to S.T. Coleridge in December 1798 and first published with the title 'Song' in the second edition of Lyrical Ballads (1800), this is one of the celebrated series of five short lyrics known as the 'Lucy poems'. This transcript is one of 12 known manuscript copies recorded in the Cornell Wordsworth edition.