Dorothy "Dora" Wordsworth was the daughter of poet William Wordsworth and his wife Mary Hutchinson. Her infancy inspired William Wordsworth to write "Address to My Infant Daughter" in her honour. As an adult, she was further immortalised by him in the 1828 poem "The Triad", along with Edith Southey and Sara Coleridge, daughters of her father's fellow Lake Poets. In 1843, at the age of 39, Dora Wordsworth married Edward Quillinan. While her father initially opposed the marriage, the "temperate but persistent pressure" exerted by Isabella Fenwick, a close family friend, convinced him to relent.
Throughout her life, Wordsworth formed intense romantic attachments to both men and women, the most significant being her friendship with Maria Jane Jewsbury. Another close friend was Maria Kinnaird, adoptive daughter of Richard "Conversation" Sharp and the future wife of Thomas Drummond. Wordsworth and Kinnaird were friends from their teenage years and some of their correspondence has survived.
Described by her aunt and namesake Dorothy Wordsworth as "at times very beautiful", Dora Wordsworth was devoted to her father and a significant influence on his poetry.