Letters of John Keats

by John Keats, Robert Gittings (Editor)

General and students of nineteenth-century English literature and history.

Genres: Poetry, Nonfiction, Classics, Biography, Romanticism, 19th Century, History

448 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1954

About the author

Rich melodic works in classical imagery of English poet John Keats include " The Eve of Saint Agnes ," " Ode on a Grecian Urn ," and " To Autumn ," all in 1819.

Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley include "Adonais," an elegy of 1821 to John Keats.

Work of the principal of the Romantic movement of England received constant critical attacks from the periodicals of the day during his short life. He nevertheless posthumously immensely influenced poets, such as Alfred Tennyson. Elaborate word choice and sensual imagery characterize poetry, including a series of odes, masterpieces of Keats among the most popular poems in English literature. Most celebrated letters of Keats expound on his aesthetic theory of "negative capability."

Wikipedia page of the author

Reviews

[Ulysse · Rating 5 out of 5]

A famous poet’s gravestone reads: Here lies one whose name was writ in water.

That water must have been pretty damn cold, for the name remains writ and will do so till the end of time.

John Keats, that many splendored thing.

To really appreciate this poet a reading of his letters is I think essential. This is where you get the full picture of the man, with his hopes and his fears and his dreams and his doubts and his triumphs and presumptions and visions and observations and his courage and his loves and his bigotries and his loyalties and his humour and his sadness and his genius and his poor consumptive lungs. (I wonder that people had the courage to step out of their homes to buy bread and see people in those days.)

So little and yet so much happens in the 242 letters that document the last three years of Keats’ life—jottings of a mind maturing day after day, week after week, right up to the end. What does Keats do during this time? Let's see: he spends a Summer in Dorset where it rains. His poem Endymion gets blasted by an army of nonentities. He goes to his brother George’s wedding and enjoys himself. He sees George and Georgiana off at Liverpool whence they'll embark on a journey to the New World, never to return. He goes on a walking tour through the North of England and Scotland for two months with his friend Brown. He visits Fingal’s cave, climbs Ben Nevis, admires bonnie Highland lasses. He come back to London to look after his sick brother Thomas, who dies in his arms. He hangs out with his friends. Writes lots of letters. Falls in love with Fanny Brawne. Gets sick. Dies.

But the poems he wrote. Goddamn.

Reading these letters is like watching a time-lapse film of delicate buds opening under the sunbeam of an early Spring. I believe no mind ever bloomed more beautifully. The style of the letters is slapdash, spontaneous, quick as thought, messy, funny, sublime—full of long dashes, bad spelling, slips of the pen and awful puns. Chaotic as the forest floor they are. They’re the rich and potent soil out of which the poems grew.

Do yourselves a favour: set aside an hour each day to read one or two poems along with one or two letters, devote a month of your life to John Keats, the man and his work, keep at it every day without fail, prostrate yourselves at the feet of poesy, be willing to appear more than a little ridiculous as you quaff nectar with the gods. When you’re done put the books back in a dry place, take a deep breath, and get on with your lives.

[Tifany · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of the four books without which my life would not be worth living (the others being The Brothers Karamazov, The Lord of the Rings, and the Mahabharata--various translations--none complete). I liked Keats' poetry well enough in school, though of the Romantics, Shelley was my favorite. My professor said something that stuck with me, though--he said, that of all the Romantics, Keats is the one you would have most wanted to be your friend. Years later, still thinking about this, I went out and bought Bates' excellent biography, which led me to reading all of the letters. I have a small version I carry around with me (not all the time, of course--I don't take it swimming). The version pictured here--Gittings version--is the one I recommend, though I didn't enjoy his biography as well as I did Bates'.

[unnarrator · Rating 5 out of 5]

"You must be mine to die upon the rack if I want you." In which party-girl Fanny Brawne gets told.

I love these. I love that he quotes an entire page of Robert Burton; that he spells more worser than Dickinson; and that these letters are 120 years old but fresher than yesterday's tweet-bleats. And I conclude with an immortal haiku from, I believe, the late Seymour Glass.

John Keats
John Keats
John
please put your scarf on.

[*¨`*•✿ madyson ✿•*`¨* · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5/5

First book I've ever read with just letters by a poet/author and I'm so glad I picked this one.

I've heard about John Keats from the song Cemetery Gates by The Smiths which is one of my favorite bands ever. So I immediately had to read something by Keats.

This book is basically just letters of Keats life before he passed. It contains 4 years of letters! My favorite letter were to his lover Fanny Brawne they were so amazing. Every letter made me fell like I was close with Keats. I got to follow along the last 4 years of his life through letters he wrote to loved ones, friends, and more.

Fun Fact: John Keats doesn't know how to spell words. I think its crazy how he was a wild thinker and he had trouble with spelling. This honestly makes me so happy to know so many smart people have trouble doing small things like spelling words.

[Alok Mishra · Rating 5 out of 5]

The letters by John Keats, in a way, are more near to his personality than his poems. He revealed himself to his friends, to his family and certainly to his beloved. The lesser lit side of his personality can be understood and readers get a chance to know John in black and white. I would recommend these letters be read by advanced students of English literature (in an academic context) because these letters can highly influence the interpretations of his poems.

[Hadley · Rating 4 out of 5]

Austen's novels gave me a rather faulty impression of regency letter-writing. Keats's letters, with their run-on sentences, superabundance of em-dashes and some of the most atrocious-yet-endearing misspellings I've ever encountered, frequently made me feel like I'd been dropped into somebody's group chat with no context except my ability to decipher literary references. It's definitely difficult at times to keep his friend group straight or care about his siblings' financial issues, but I generally found his silly jokes enjoyable, there's at times very valuable background to specific poems, and every now and then he goes off on some really brilliant tangent about art (particularly in the long letters to his brother and sister-in-law in the US, in which he lets himself ramble a lot). A few of my questions going into this rested largely unanswered (what he thought about Shelley's work and what led him to abandon the apothecary career for poetry) but the amount of surviving correspondence from such a short timespan is still huge. One should also mention the love letters to his fiancée, which are...intense, especially by contrast with the rest of his correspondence. I really wish her letters had survived, as the relationship feels very one-sided when read in this way.

I doubt I'd recommend a complete collection like this to anyone without my love of Keats's poetry, but I certainly had a blast reading this until I hit the last year of his life, at which point it became extremely sad.

[Iris Marble]

Have had this book for at least ten years (given to me by my dad when I was in middle school). Finally reading it. It is juicy, funny, tender and brilliant. I often forget I am reading something written almost 200 years ago.

[Rashed · Rating 5 out of 5]

One short sleep past, we wake eternally
And death shall be no more; Death, thou shalt die....

[Keerthi Vasishta · Rating 5 out of 5]

If you like the Romantics or anything remotely to do with John Keats, I see no reason why you would not read this. There is value in this for a casual reader or a researcher or someone in the middle.
Memorable letters to say the least.

[Linda · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm glad I got to know Keats better through his letters. I have always thought of him with a deep sadness, so it was important for me to read about his full life before illness took him much too soon. I had no idea he wandered about as much as he did with long, LONG walks/adventures. It's rare to be able to read the inner thoughts of anyone, much less a poetic genius. I highly recommend the museum to the right of the Spanish Steps in Rome (it's where he died); they have important papers by other artists as well as Keats letters/works.

[Harrison Glaze · Rating 4 out of 5]

“A Man’s life of any worth is a continual allegory, and very few eyes can see the Mystery of his life—a life like the scriptures, figurative—which such people can no more make out than they can the Hebrew Bible. Lord Byron cuts a figure but he is not figurative—Shakespeare led a life of Allegory: his works are the comments on it.”

[Josh February · Rating 5 out of 5]

i never thought reading someone's letters would be worth my time
they feel so personal, like i'm getting a picture of the man behind the poetry
john keats was a romantic through and through, and maybe the best one

[Rahul Anand · Rating 5 out of 5]

The letters by John Keats are as wonderful as are his poems, of course!

[Thomas · Rating 5 out of 5]

Profound and, at times, difficult to read, but they provide a portrait of a Romantic legend in his euphoria and his darkest moments.

[Ashton Randolph · Rating 5 out of 5]

This became the wrong reality the moment Keats died at 25

[Reid Powers · Rating 5 out of 5]

These letters are wonderful, if only for a single reason--Keats was the first person in history to use "peacocking" as a verb.

[the mad hatter · Rating 5 out of 5]

Keat’s poems and letters are an absolute pleasure to read. Keats is one of the most seductive poets I have ever read. His words have completely captivated me, and his letters are further irresistible. Although he could be contradictory and manipulative, he is nonetheless loveable. He had a very short life, and yet, he still managed to write some of the most beautiful poems ever written in the English Language.

Keats also had an enduring interest in antiquity and the ancient world. His longer poems, such as the fall of Hyperion or Lamian, take place in a mythical world. He borrowed many figures from ancient mythology. When I read these poems as a young girl, I didn’t understand his references, as I had never studied mythology. Having taken the time to understand them, his poetry has only become more full and beautiful, and for me, this has added a whole new level of depth to his poems.

Let Keats swallow you up. You won’t regret it!

[Laura · Rating 4 out of 5]

If I was simply rating Keats' brilliant, passionate, warm, and heartrendingly human letters they would of course earn a 5 star rating. Not thrilled with this edition though- more footnotes and perhaps an afterword would improve it.

[Lorraine · Rating 3 out of 5]

Great philosophy. His letters to Fanny though, are... well, I don't think he ever got to *really* know her, you know? stuff about the Muse and all that.

[Jen · Rating 5 out of 5]

Some of the most beautiful ideas I've ever had the privelege of contemplating and writing about.

[Sara]

I saw the movie Bright Star and loved it and so I want to find out about more of the real John Keats.

[Kathy]

recommended in Eng 362