The Guardian view on writers’ houses: a museum of one’s own | Editorial

The Wordsworth Trust has acquired a second home. Cherished authors including George Eliot don’t even have one

Interest in all things Jane Austen remains high, following the celebrations of her 250th anniversary. In September, the museum based in her former home in Chawton, Hampshire, will host a Persuasion festival. But a less obvious beneficiary of this spike in interest is a museum dedicated to two writers she never met: William and Dorothy Wordsworth. The success of the BBC television series The Other Bennet Sister – which portrayed Mary, a minor character in Austen’s Pride and Prejudice, as a Wordsworth enthusiast – has led to an influx of visitors to Dove Cottage in Cumbria.

This has been a big year for the Wordsworth Trust, which owns the cottage, owing to its purchase of another house: Rydal Mount, two miles to the east. When this building is reopened, the poet will become one of a handful of authors, along with Charles Dickens and Thomas Hardy, to have more than one of his homes opened to visitors.