| Abstract: | In the 1830s the poet William Wordsworth bought government annuities on the lives of old men from the Lake District and elsewhere. This episode is recounted for the light which it throws on the history of the government's life annuity business in the early nineteenth century. An account of this business is given, and an explanation offered for the fact that the government suffered heavy losses at the hands of life assurance companies and other speculators, including Wordsworth and the banker friend who led him into the investment. Wordsworth's financial dealings are also considered from the perspective of a literary historian, for the insights which they afford into Wordsworth's understanding of a poet's public and private responsibilities. |
