I
I do not know of any Journal written at Racedown, and I do not think that Dorothy kept one while she and her brother lived in Dorsetshire. In July 1797 they took up their residence at Alfoxden; but, so far as is known, it was not till the 20th of January 1798 that Dorothy began to write a Journal of her own and her brother's life at that place. It was continued uninterruptedly till Thursday, 22nd May 1798. It gives numerous details as to the visits of Coleridge to Alfoxden, and the Wordsworths' visits to him at Nether-Stowey, as well as of the circumstances under which several of their poems were composed. Many sentences in the Journal present a curious resemblance to words and phrases which occur in the poems; and there is no doubt that, as brother and sister made use of the same note-book—some of Wordsworth's own verses having been written by him in his sister's journal—the copartnery may have extended to more than the common use of the same MS.
The archaic spellings which occur in this Journal are retained; but inaccuracies—such as Bartelmy for Bartholemew, Crewkshank for Cruikshank—are corrected. In the edition of 1889 the words were printed as written in MS.; but it is one thing to reproduce the bona fide text of a journal, or the ipsissima verba of a poet, and quite another to reproduce the incorrect spellings of his sister.