The 43rd Wordsworth Summer Conference
Monday 4 August to Thursday 14 August 2014
Rydal Hall, Rydal, Cumbria, England
Keynote Lecturers
Mark Bruhn, Frederick Burwick, Will Christie
David Fairer, Stephen Gill, Richard Gravil, Felicity James
Claire Lamont, Michael O'Neill, Daniel Robinson
David Simpson, Katie Waldegrave, Saeko Yoshikawa

Welcome to Rydal Hall!

The Wordsworth Summer Conference has been welcoming participants since 1970,
and in 2014 we will be celebrating its 45th year. Held in elegant and hospitable Rydal
Hall – the country seat of the Le Flemings since the 17th Century and now a Diocesan
Retreat with listed formal and picturesque gardens – the Wordsworth Summer
Conference has all of the conviviality and cordial community of a traditional English
house party. Lectures and papers will be delivered in the comfortable surroundings of
the Old Barn, reached by crossing the sparkling mountain stream that tumbles down
through the grounds from Rydal Falls. All meals are taken at Rydal Hall, and havedrawn high praise from our gourmet participants. The Hall has a friendly and wellstocked bar open in the evenings, and, for those who like to exercise before imbibing,the Badger Bar at the Glen Rothay Hotel is a five-minute walk way.
The extensive garden grounds are available for all participants to enjoy, including aviewing station by the Falls and a five hundred-year-old Sweet Chestnut Tree. Outside
the lecture room there will be local walks and longer hikes and excursions (for details,see below), and the old market town of Ambleside is a 40 minute ramble away throughmeadows along the banks of the River Rothay.

2

Our opening night will include a reception in the Wordsworth Museum followed by acandle light visit to Dove Cottage. There will be further opportunities to visit theWordsworth Trust’s summer exhibition on Wordsworth and Basho in both parts of theconference, and Rydal Mount, Wordsworth’s home from 1813 until 1850, is just a
two-minute walk away. Our excursions are likely to include Furness Abbey, Isel Hall,
Sizergh Castle and the picturesque ‘Viewing Station’ on Windermere. The all-day
excursion will explore Wordsworth’s Cumbria (Penrith Beacon, the Dame School,
hostelries frequented by Richard III and William Wordsworth, Moor Divock’s bronze
age monuments, Sockbridge and Martindale). The famous ‘A-walks’ will include
ascents of Crinkle Crags, Striding Edge, and (on changeover day) the Coniston
Horseshoe. By courtesy of the Wordsworth Trust, all participants will have free accessto Dove Cottage and the Wordsworth Museum during the Conference.

3Call for Papers
Proposals are invited and welcomed for twenty-minute papers on all aspects ofWilliam Wordsworth, his contemporaries, and the Romantic period. Possible topics
for 2014 might include bicentenary texts such as The Excursion, Burney’s Wanderer,
Byron’s Corsair, Leigh Hunt’s Feast of the Poets, J. H. Reynolds’ Eden of theImagination and Safie, Scott’s Waverley – or literary responses to contemporary
events such as Napoleon’s exile on Elba. The choice of paper topic is entirely open.
Please send your proposal as soon as possible! There are no parallel sessions at theWordsworth Conference so all participants are able to hear all presentations.
Proposals: 250 word proposals for papers of no more than 2750 words together with abrief autobiographical paragraph should occupy no more than 2 sides of A4. They willbe copied into a composite file so please do not format elaborately or send as a pdf.
E-mail to the Director Nicholas Roe at wordsworthsummerconference@gmail.com by15 April 2014. All other enquiries about accommodation, costs etc. should be e-mailed
to the Conference Secretary, Stacey McDowell, at the same e-mail address.

Format and Costs
The Wordsworth Summer Conference is in two parts of 4 full days each, with achangeover day on Saturday 9 August. The conference fee, which includes up to sevenexcursions, offers exceptional value at £250 for ten days (£175 for five days). These
fees are payable on registration. Full Board at Rydal Hall is available at prices ranging
from £600 to £900 (for ten nights; pro rata for five nights), and at the adjacent YouthCentre from £450 (for ten nights). All resident participants will take all meals at Rydal
Hall. Non-resident registration is £80 a day, £320 for Part 1 or 2, or £540 for the wholeconference, inclusive of packed lunch and dinner (prices for attendance without meals
are available on application). All costs are payable by 15 May and because we face
heavy cancellation charges, full refunds are unlikely after this date: travel insurance istherefore advised. Please see our website Terms and Conditions page.
Bursaries: a separate announcement will be made of twelve bursaries for the 2014
Conference.
Nicholas Roe, Conference Director, for the Trustees of the Wordsworth Conference
Foundation; Stacey McDowell, Conference Secretary.
http://www.wordsworthconferences.org.uk

4