ath some years later, called "Surprised by Joy." The following year, realizing that the family's finances were suffering. A couple of years later, he started cautiously publishing some poems again, and actually got a few good reviews. Some even went so far as to compare him favorably with Robert Southey. Wordsworth didn't write much over the next few years, concentrating instead on his family. In 1829, Wordsworth returned from a trip to find his whole household stricken with influenza. Sara Hutchinson, Mary's sister, who had been staying with them, died. Dorothy, already in somewhat precarious health, recovered from the influenza physically but not mentally. For the rest of her life she suffered continual ill-temper and was mostly incoherent, except when quoting poetry. In 1839, Wordsworth finshed The Prelude, a poetical autobiography of his early life which he'd been working on for years. He sealed it away, to be printed only after his death. William Wordsworth died on 23rd of April in 1850, of pleurisy, an infection of the lung cavitiy. His daughter Dora died of tuberculosis in 1847, but his two remaining sons, John and Willy, both married and had children, as did his illegitimate daughter Caroline, so there are still direct descendants of Wordsworth around today. Even though poetry failed to continue in the family, William Wordsworth left a mark on the world for all of them; a mark that will be remebered for centuries to come....
