John Keats

So Bright and Delicate: Love Letters and Poems of John Keats to Fanny Brawne is a testament to the love that inspired the passion and creativity of one of the greatest English Romantic poets. This Penguin Classics edition includes an introduction by Jane Campion, Oscar-winning director of the film Bright Star. John Keats died aged just twenty-five, leaving behind some of the most exquisite and moving verse and love letters ever written, inspired by his great love for his neighbour, Fanny Brawne. Although they knew each other for just a few short years and spent a great deal of that time apart - separated by Keats's worsening illness, which forced a move abroad - Keats wrote again and again about and to his love, right until his very last poem, called simply 'To Fanny'. She, in turn, would wear the ring he had given her until her death. So Bright and Delicate contains the love poems and correspondence composed by Keats in the heat of his passion, and is a dazzling display of a talent cruelly cut short. John Keats (1795-1821) lost both his parents at an early age. His decision to commit himself to poetry, rather than follow a career in medicine, was a personal challenge, unfounded in any prior success. His first volume of poetry, published in 1817, was a critical and commercial failure. During his short life he received little recognition, and it was not until the latter part of the nineteenth century that his place in English Romanticism began to be understood, and not until this century that it became fully appreciated. If you enjoyed So Bright and Delicate, you might like Keats's Complete Poems, also available in Penguin Classics.

WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY DIRECTOR JANE CAMPIONJohn Keats died in penury and relative obscurity in 1821, aged only 25. He is now seen as one of the greatest English poets and a genius of the Romantic age. This collection, which contains all his most memorable works and a selection of his letters, is a feast for the senses, displaying Keats' gift for gorgeous imagery and sensuous language, his passionate devotion to beauty, as well as some of the most moving love poetry ever written.

'Do you not see how necessary a World of Pains and troubles is to school an Intelligence and make it a soul?' Keats's letters have long been regarded as an extraordinary record of poetic development and sout-making. They represent one of the most sustained reflections on the poet's art we have from any of the major English poets. Yet quite apart from the light they throw on the poetry, they are great works of literature in their own right. Written with gusto and occasionally painful candour, they show a powerful intelligence struggling to come to terms with its own mortality. Sometimes bitterly jealous in love and socially and financially insecure, at others playful and confident of his own greatness, Keats interweaves his personal plight with the history of a Britain emerging from the long years of the Napoleonic Wars into a world of political unrest, profound social change, and commercial expansion. This selection of 170 letters, written between 1816 and 1820, includes a new introduction and notes by Jon Mee explaining both the personal and political contexts that brought them to life. ABOUT THE SERIES: For over 100 years Oxford World's Classics has made available the widest range of literature from around the globe. Each affordable volume reflects Oxford's commitment to scholarship, providing the most accurate text plus a wealth of other valuable features, including expert introductions by leading authorities, helpful notes to clarify the text, up-to-date bibliographies for further study, and much more.

For this reason, this volume presents the writings in the order of publication rather than composition. Readers can trace the poems through letters, reviews, and related material chronologically interleaved with the texts themselves. This edition offers extensive apparatus to help readers fully appreciate Keats’s poetry and legacy, including an introduction, headnotes, explanatory annotations, and a wealth of contextual documents. “Criticism” includes twelve important commentaries on Keats and his poetry, by Paul de Man, Marjorie Levinson, Grant F. Scott, Margaret Homans, Nicholas Roe, Stuart Sperry, Neil Fraistat, Jack Stillinger, James Chandler, Alan Bewell, and Jeffrey N. Cox.

John Keats's abiding poetic legacy is one of extraordinary and triumphant richness. Before the moment of `self-will' when he declared his intention to be a poet, Keats (1795-1821) had chosen the medical profession. His apothecary's training influenced his conception of poetry as an art that could mitigate the world's suffering. Keats's generous spirit triumphed over personal sadness, finding expression in his concept of life as a `vale of Soul-making' rather than a vale of tears. He published only three volumes before his death at the age of 25, and, while many of his contemporaries quickly recognized his genius, snobbery and political hostility led the Tory press to vilify him. This selection, chosen from the Oxford Authors critical edition of Keats's major works, demonstrates the remarkable growth in maturity of his verse, from early poems such as `Imitation of Spenser' and `Ode to Apollo' to later work such as 'The Eve of St Agnes', `Ode to a Nightingale', and `To Autumn'. Elizabeth Cook's introduction, notes and glossary of classical names offer helpful insights into Keats's life and work. ABOUT THE SERIES: For over 100 years Oxford World's Classics has made available the widest range of literature from around the globe. Each affordable volume reflects Oxford's commitment to scholarship, providing the most accurate text plus a wealth of other valuable features, including expert introductions by leading authorities, helpful notes to clarify the text, up-to-date bibliographies for further study, and much more.