The 2026 Wordsworth Summer Conference at elegant Rydal Hall will be the 55th since Richard Wordsworth’s inaugural conference gathering in 1970. This year we continue the format pioneered by Richard, mingling lectures, papers and lively academic debate with fell walking, picturesque rambles, and bus excursions to places of Wordsworthian and Romantic interest.
Call for Papers
2026 marks the centenary of Ernest de Selincourt’s publication of the parallel texts of the 1805 and 1850 Prelude, a landmark volume that shaped Wordsworth studies during the twentieth century and continues to do so today. 2026 is also 150 years since the publication of Wordsworth’s Prose Works of William Wordsworth, a three-volume set edited by the Scottish scholar A. B. Grosart. In view of these Wordsworth anniversaries, we invite papers that will explore ‘Wordsworth Texts’ broadly considered, to embrace the poet’s manuscript and printed texts in verse and prose, versions and editions up to the present. Papers may consider texts produced by the wider Wordsworth family (e.g. Mary Wordsworth, Dorothy Wordsworth, Dora Wordsworth, Edward Quillinan) as well as critical, biographical, scholarly, and editorial commentaries from Wordsworth’s time up to the present.
In addition to these topics, we also welcome proposals on any aspect of Wordsworth and his circle, and the Romantic period more broadly, including its influences and legacies.
For more information, including bursaries, please see the PDF attached to this email.
All proposals for papers, bursary applications (and references, if applicable) should be emailed by 15 May 2026 to proposal.wsc@gmail.com.
—
Kira
Conference Administrator