John Keats

Over the course of his short life, John Keats (1795-1821) honed a raw talent into a brilliant poetic maturity. By the end of his brief career, he had written poems of such beauty, imagination and generosity of spirit, that he had - unwittingly - fulfilled his wish that he should ‘be among the English poets after my death’. This wide-ranging selection of Keats’s poetry contains youthful verse, such as his earliest known poem ‘Imitation of Spenser’; poems from his celebrated collection of 1820 - including ‘Lamia’, ‘Isabella’, ‘The Eve of St Agnes’, ‘Ode to a Nightingale’ and ‘Hyperion’ - and later celebrated works such as ‘La Belle Dame sans Merci’. Also included are many poems considered by Keats to be lesser work, but which illustrate his more earthy, playful side and superb ear for everyday language.

From the introduction by Philip Levine: Walter Jackson Bate, in his biography of Keats, has writers, critics, readers, have approached Keats during the last century, on one quality in his writing they have been completely united. They have all been won by an economy and power of phrase excelled only by Shakespeare." This poet whose greatest ambition was to he "among the English poets" is not only preeminent among those of the past, but for well over a century he has continued to be the yardstick by which those who have written poetry in our language can measure their success. He remains a wellspring to which all of us might go to refresh our belief in the value of this art.

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.

What, in Ten Words or Less, Is All This Nonsense About? Good question Veteran writer John Keats doesn't limit his answer to ten words. But he does go to the heart of the "nonsense"-the writing life-and provide keen wisdom based on a lifetime of craft. Keats (1920-2000) was a best-selling author of thirteen books and hundreds of magazine articles who left an acclaimed twenty-four-year writing career in 1974 to teach magazine writing in the S. I. Newhouse School of Public Communications at Syracuse University. Everyone who attended Keats's classes will treasure this collection of essays, letters and unpublished stories, assembled by former student Doug Brunk. Everyone else will wish they had met the legendary writer and teacher in person. Keats's General Rules for Writing Nonfiction includes: - Where Writing Begins - How to Evoke Feelings - Adding Style to Form - Avoiding the Formulas - Finding Your Writer's Voice "Keats was a legend who transformed the lives of a generation of students (including me). For anyone who cares about writing, this book is an entertaining and useful guide. It conveys those simple, powerful rules and that unique brand of wisdom that defined the writing, teaching, and life of John Keats." Nelson Pe a Editorial Director Rodale Custom Publishing Rodale, Inc. "This is a great treat for the many people who knew and loved John Keats as a teacher and friend. Reading it was like listening to Keats talk about writing, which I always loved." William A. Glavin, Jr. Professor of Magazine Journalism S. I. Newhouse School of Public Communications Syracuse University

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For many years one of the most serious needs in the literary world has been for a definitive edition of the letters of Keats. Now one of the world's foremost Keats authorities, Hyder Edward Rollins of Harvard, has prepared a completely new edition of all the extant letters, with an extensive listing of the letters presumed missing. With impeccable scholarship and total faithfulness to the originals, Professor Rollins here is able to redate and rearrange sixty of the letters. Through full documentation for each letter, understanding of the content is considerably amplified both through the correction of errors, and through application of the results of the editor's life-long study of Keats and his work. In addition to many letters from Keats' relatives and friends, the present work includes seven letters or other documents signed or written by Keats that appear in no English edition, and also new texts of seven other letters by the poet. Furthermore, all the letters known only in Woodhouse's transcripts and in Jeffrey's transcripts are here printed for the first time exactly as Woodhouse and Jeffrey copied them. The letters of Joseph Severn describing the last illness and death of Keats are given in their entirety. These letters are invaluable historically and biographically, and are also exceptionally good reading.