Selected Letters of John Keats: Based on the Texts of Hyder Edward Rollins
- Book Review,
by John Keats
From Library Journal
If letter writing is a performance art, and great performances seduce, then surely readers will be seduced by the letters of John Keats. The examples included here are those selected by Hyder E. Rollins for The Letters of John Keats, 1814-1821, but Scott (English, Muhlenberg Coll.) has deleted the endless academic annotations and updated the spelling and punctuation for ease of reading. As a result, the letters glow with spontaneity; sprightly and personal to the point of intimacy, they reveal a mind and heart searching high and low for possibilities. Here, readers will see a man in step with daily existence who reasoned his way through but also exalted in life's infinite variety and challenges. Insights into Keats's poetry are to be found, too, as well as his great devotion to friends and family. Keats was not without human frailties he could be dicey, contradictory, and manipulative but his letters are irresistible. Included in this volume are letters to a cross section of people, including Keats's friends, siblings, and fianc‚e, Fanny Brawne. Scott wisely includes a few letters to and about John Keats, the most notable being those of the painter Joseph Severn, his loving caregiver, who nursed Keats until his early death in Italy. Recommended for larger public libraries. Robert L. Kelly, Fort Wayne Community Schs., IN Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.
John A. Murray, Bloomsbury Review, September 1, 2002
Harvard University Press has produced a definitive volume in this...edition about the poet "whose name was writ on water."
Book Description
The letters of John Keats are, T. S. Eliot remarked, "what letters ought to be; the fine things come in unexpectedly, neither introduced nor shown out, but between trifle and trifle." This new edition, which features four rediscovered letters, three of which are being published here for the first time, affords readers the pleasure of the poet's "trifles" as well as the surprise of his most famous ideas emerging unpredictably. Unlike other editions, this selection includes letters to Keats and among his friends, lending greater perspective to an epistolary portrait of the poet. It also offers a revealing look at his "posthumous existence," the period of Keats's illness in Italy, painstakingly recorded in a series of moving letters by Keats's deathbed companion, Joseph Severn. Other letters by Dr. James Clark, Percy Bysshe Shelley, and Richard Woodhouse--omitted from other selections of Keats's letters--offer valuable additional testimony concerning Keats the man. Edited for greater readability, with annotations reduced and punctuation and spelling judiciously modernized, this selection recreates the spontaneity with which these letters were originally written.
About the Author
Hyder Edward Rollins was Professor of English at Harvard University. Grant F. Scott is Associate Professor of English at Muhlenberg College.
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