A prominent clergyman, educator, and religious polemicist, Christopher Wordsworth was a writer of prodigious energy and learning. In published accounts of his travels, which make up only a small part of his complete works, he brought to Victorian readers a sense of the geography and architecture of ancient Greece as well as an understanding of the religious and educational institutions of Italy and France.

He was the youngest son of Christopher Wordsworth, younger brother of William Wordsworth, and of Priscilla Lloyd Wordsworth, who came from a prominent family in Birmingham. Trained early to construe accurately and fluently in both Greek and Latin, he won prizes for both English and Latin composition at Winchester College and, having distinguished himself athletically as well, earned the nickname "The Great Christopher." Wordsworth and his two older brothers, John and Charles, developed a close and lasting relationship with their Uncle William's household at...