Book description
WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY DIRECTOR JANE CAMPION
John 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.
John Keats was born in London in 1795. He trained as a surgeon and
apothecary but quickly abandoned this profession for poetry. His first
volume of poetry was published in 1817, soon after he had begun an
influential friendship with the Romantic poet Percy Bysshe Shelley. His
first collection and the subsequent long poem
Endymion
recieved mixed reviews, and sales were poor. In late 1818 he moved to
Hampstead where he met and fell deeply in love with his neighbour Fanny
Brawne. During the following year Keats wrote some of his most famous
works, including 'The Eve of St. Agnes', 'Ode to a Nightingale' and 'La
Belle Dame sans Merci'. He was however increasingly plagued by
ill-health and financial troubles, which led him to break off his
engagement to Fanny. Soon after the publication of
Lamia, Isabella,
The Eve of St Agnes and Other Poems
in 1820, Keats left England for Italy in the hope that the climate
would improve his health. But Keats was by this time suffering from
advanced tuberculosis, and he died on February 23rd 1821. On his
request, Keats' tombstone reads only 'Here lies one whose name was writ
in water'.
