John Barnard was Professor of English Literature at the University of Leeds, 1978-2001, and is a Senior Research Fellow, Institute of English Studies, University of London. He has written extensively on seventeenth century literature, Dryden, the second generation Romantics, and book history, and has published editions of John Keats (Penguin Classics, 1973, etc.), William Congreve (1972), and Sir George Etherege (1979), and edited the Critical Heritage Pope (1973). His study of Keats was published by Cambridge University Press in 1987. From 1975 to 2010 he was General Editor of Longman Annotated Poets. He edited The Cambridge History of the Book in Britain, Volume IV, 1557-1695 (2002) with D. F. McKenzie, and published John Keats: Selected Letters in 2014.

This new volume in the 21st-Century Oxford Authors series presents a substantial selection of Keats's writings arranged chronologically as his contemporary readers first encountered them. It places the poetry by which Keats was known to a reading public in his lifetime within the biographical context provided by his unpublished poems and letters.

• Introduction


• Chronology


• A Note on the Selection and its Ordering


• LETTERS AND POEMS 1814 TO 9 MARCH 1817


• On Peace


• Lines Written on 29 May, the Anniversary of Charles's Restoration, on Hearing the Bells Ringing


• 'Fill for me a brimming Bowl'


• 'As from the darkening gloom a silver dove'


• 'Oh Chatterton! how very sad thy fate'


• Ode to Apollo


• To Solitude (Examiner version, 5 May 1816)


• 'I am as brisk'


• 'Give me women wine and snuff'


• 'Oh! how I love on a fair summer's eve'


• Keats to Charles Cowden Clarke, 9 October 1816


• On First Looking into Chapman's Homer (Examiner version, 1 December 1816)


• Written in Disgust of Vulgar Superstition


• 'After dark vapors have oppressed our plains' (Examiner, 23 February 1817)


• 'God of the golden bow'


• To Haydon, with a Sonnet Written on Seeing the Elgin Marbles (Examiner and Champion, 9 March 1817)


• On Seeing the Elgin Marbles (Examiner and Champion, 9 March 1817)


• POEMS (1817)


• Dedication: To Leigh Hunt, Esq.


• Poems:


• ['I stood tip-toe upon a little hill']


• Specimen of an Induction to a Poem


• Calidore: A Fragmnent


• To Some Ladies


• On Receiving a Curious Shell, and a Copy of Verses, from the Same Ladies


• To ****


• To Hope


• Imitation of Spenser


• ['Woman! when I behold thee flippant, vain']


• Epistles:


• To George Felton Mathew


• To My Brother George


• To Charles Cowden Clarke


• Sonnets:


• I To my Brother George


• II To ******


• III Written on the Day Mr. Leigh Hunt left Prison


• IV ['How many bards gild the lapses of time!']


• V To a Friend who sent me some Roses


• VI To G. A. W.


• VII ['O Solitude! if I must with thee dwell']


• VIII To My Brothers


• IX ['Keen, fitful gusts are whisp'ring here ad there']


• X ['To one who has been long in city pent']


• XI On First Looking into Chapman's Homer


• XII On Leaving some Friends at an early Hour


• XIII Addressed to Haydon


• XIV Addressed to the Same


• XV To the Grasshopper and the Cricket


• XVI To Kosciusko


• XVII ['Happy is England! I could be content']


• Sleep and Poetry


• LETTERS, PROSE, AND POEMS: EARLY MARCH 1817 TO APRIL 1818


• On a Leander which Miss Reynolds my Kind friend gave me


• Written on a Blank Space at the End of Chaucer's Tale of 'The Floure and the Lefe' (Examiner, 16 March 1817)


• Keats to George and Tom Keats, 15 April 1817


• Keats to J. H. Reynolds, 17, 18 April 1817


• Keats to Leigh Hunt, 10 May 1817


• Keats to B. R. Haydon, 10, 11 May


• 'Unfelt unheard unseen'


• 'You say you love; but with a voice'


• 'Hither hither Love'


• Keats to Taylor and Hessey, 10 June 1817


• On the Sea (Champion, 17 August 1817)


• 'The Gothic looks solemn'


• Keats to Fanny Keats, 10 September 1817


• Keats to Jane and Marianne Reynolds, 14 September 1817


• Keats to Benjamin Bailey, 8 October 1817


• Keats to Benjamin Bailey, 3 November 1817


• 'Think not of it, sweet one, so '


• Keats to Benjamin Bailey, 22 November 1817


• Keats to J. H. Reynolds, 22 November 1817


• 'In drear nighted December'


• 'Before he went to live with owls and bats'


• Mr Kean (Review in the Champion, 21 December 1817)


• Keats to George and Tom Keats, 21, 27 (?) December 1817


• To Mrs Reynolds's Cat


• Keats's Marginalia in his Facsimile of Shakespeare's First Folio (1808)


• Lines on Seeing a Lock of Milton's Hair


• On Sitting Down to Read King Lear Once Again


• Keats to B. R. Haydon, 23 January 1818


• Keats to Benjamin Bailey, 23 January 1818


• Keats to George and Tom Keats, 23, 24 January 1818


• Keats to John Taylor, 30 January 1818


• 'When I have fears that I may cease to be'


• 'O blush not so! O blush not so!'


• 'Hence Burgundy, Claret, and Port'


• 'God of the Meridian'


• Keats to J. H. Reynolds, 3 February 1818


• 'Time's sea hath been five years at its slow ebb'


• To the Nile


• 'Spenser, a jealous Honorer of thine'


• Keats to J. H. Reynolds, 19 February 1818 [includes 'O thou whose face hath felt the Winter's wind']


• Keats to John Taylor, 27 February 1818


• 'Four Seasons fill the Measure of the year'


• Keats to Benjamin Bailey, 13 March 1818


• Keats to J. H. Reynolds, 14 March 1818


• Keats's Marginalia in Paradise Lost (1807)


• Rejcted Title-Page, Dedication and Preface to Endymion (19 March 1818) 00


• 'Where be ye going you Devon Maid'


• 'Over the hill and over the dale'


• Keats to J. H. Reynolds, 25 March 1818 ('Dear Reynolds, as last night I lay in bed')


• Keats to B. R. Haydon, 8 April 1818


• Keats to J. H. Reynolds, 9 April 1818


• Keats to John Taylor, 24 April 1818


• Keats to J. H. Reynolds, 27 April 1818


• To Homer


• ENDYMION: A POETIC ROMANCE (1818)


• Preface


• Book I


• Book II


• Book III


• Book IV


• LETTERS AND POEMS: MAY 1818 TO JUNE 1820


• 'Mother of Hermes! and still youthful Maia!'


• Keats to J. H. Reynolds, 3 May 1818


• Keats to Benjamin Bailey, 10 June 1818


• Keats to Tom Keats, 25-27 June 1818


• 'Give me your patience Sister while I frame'


• 'Sweet sweet is the greeting of eyes'


• Keats to Tom Keats, 29 June, 1, 2 July 1818 [includes 'On Visiting the Tomb of Burns']


• 'Old Meg she was a Gypsey'


• Keats to Fanny Keats, 2, 3, 5 July 1818 [includes 'There was a naughty Boy']


• Keats to Tom Keats, 3, 5, 7, 9 July 1818


• 'Ah! ken ye what I met the day'


• 'This mortal body of a thousand days'


• Keats to J. H. Reynolds, 11, 13 July 1818


• 'All gentle folk who owe a grudge'


• 'Of late two dainties were before me plac'd'


• 'There is a joy in footing slow across a silent plain'


• 'Not Aladin magian'


• 'Read me a Lesson muse, and speak it loud'


• Keats to Mrs Ann Wylie, 6 August 1818


• 'Nature withheld Cassandra in the Skies'


• Keats to C. W. Dilke, 20, 21 September 1818


• Keats to J. H. Reynolds, 22 (?) September 1818


• Keats to J. A. Hessey, 8 October 1818


• Keats to George and Georgiana Keats, 14, 16, 21, 24, 31 October 1818


• Keats to Richard Woodhouse, 27 October 1818


• 'Where's the Poet? Show him! show him'


• 'And what is Love?--It is a doll dress'd up'


• Song ('Hush, hush, tread softly, hush, hush my dear')


• The Human Seasons (Literary Pocket-Book version)


• Sonnet to Ailsa Rock (published Literary Pocket-Book)


• Keats to George and Georgiana Keats, 16, 17, 18, 22, 29 (?), 31 December 1818, 2-4 January 1819


• Keats to B. R. Haydon, 22 December 1818


• 'I had a dove, and the sweet dove died'


• Keats to B. R. Haydon, 8 March 1819


• The Eve of St Mark


• 'Gif ye wol stonden hardie wight'


• 'Why did I laugh tonight? No voice will tell'


• Keats to Joseph Severn, 29 March 1819


• Keats to Fanny Keats, 12 April 1819


• Keats to B. R. Haydon, 13 April 1819


• Keats to George and Georgiana Keats, 14, 19 February, 3 (?), 12, 13, 17, 19 March, 15, 16, 21, 30 April, 4, 5 May 1819 [includes 'He is to weet a melancholy Carle'] [includes draft of 'La belle dame sans merci-']


• 'As Hermes once took to his feathers light'


• La Belle Dame sans Merci : A Ballad


• Song of Four Fairies: Fire, Air, Earth, and Water


• Sonnet to Sleep


• 'If by dull rhymes our English must be chain'd'


• On Fame ('Fame, like a wayward girl')


• On Fame ('How fever'd is the man')


• Keats to Fanny Keats, 1 May 1819 [includes 'Two or three Posies']


• Ode on Indolence


• Keats to Mary-Ann Jeffery, 9 June 1819


• Keats to Fanny Brawne, 1 July 1819


• Keats to Fanny Brawne, 8 July 1819


• 'Bright Star, would that I were steadfast as thou art' (Earlier Version)


• 'Bright Star, would that I were stedfast as thou art' (Later Version)


• Keats to J. H. Reynolds, 11 July 1819


• Keats to Fanny Brawne, 15 (?) July 1819


• Keats to Fanny Brawne, 25 July 1819


• Keats to Fanny Brawne, 5, 6 August 1819


• Keats to Benjamin Bailey (last leaf only), 14 August 1819


• Keats to Fanny Brawne, 16 August 1819


• Keats and Charles Brown to John Taylor, 23 August 1819


• Keats to J. H. Reynolds, 24 August 1819


• Keats to George and Georgiana Keats, 17, 18, 20, 21, 24, 25, 27 September 1819 [includes 'Pensive they sit, and roll their langid eyes']


• Keats to J. H. Reynolds, 21 September 1819


• Keats to Richard Woodhouse, 21, 22 September 1819


• Keats to Charles Brown, 22 September 1819


• Keats to C. W. Dilke, 22 September 1819


• Keats to Fanny Brawne, 13 October 1819


• Keats to John Taylor, 17 November 1819


• 'This living hand, now warm and capable'


• 'The day is gone, and all its sweets are gone'


• 'What can I do to drive away'


• 'I cry your mercy--pity-love!--aye, love'


• To Fanny


• Keats to Fanny Keats, 8 February 1820


• Keats to James Rice, 14, 16 February 1820


• Keats to Fanny Brawne, February (?) 1820


• Keats to Fanny Brawne, February (?) 1820


• Keats to Fanny Brawne, February (?) 1819


• Keats to Fanny Brawne, February (?) 1820


• Keats to Fanny Brawne, 27 February 1820


• Keats to J. H. Reynolds, 28 February 1820


• Keats to C. W. Dilke, 4 March 1820


• Keats to Fanny Brawne, March (?) 1820


• Keats to Fanny Brawne, March (?) 1820


• Keats to Fanny Brawne, March (?) 1820


• La Belle Dame Sans Mercy (Indicator version, 10 May 1820)


• Keats to Fanny Brawne, May (?) 1820


• Keats to Fanny Brawne, late May/early June 1820


• Keats to Fanny Brawne, June (?) 1820


• Keats to Fanny Brawne, 25 (?) June 1820


• A Dream, after Reading Dante's Episode of Paulo and Franscesca (Indicator version, 28 June 1820)


• LAMIA, ISABELLA, THE EVE OF ST AGNES, AND OTHER POEMS (1820)


• Advertisement


• Lamia


• Isabella; or, the Poet of Basil


• The Eve of St Agnes


• Poems:


• Ode to a Nightingale


• Ode on a Grecian Urn


• Ode to Psyche


• Fancy


• Ode ('Bards of Passion and of Mirth')


• Lines on the Mermaid Tavern


• Robin Hood: To a Friend


• To Autumn


• Ode on Melancholy


• Hyperion. A Fragment


• LAST LETTERS AND POEMS


• The Fall of Hyperion: A Dream


• Keats to Fanny Brawne, 4 July (?) 1820


• 'In after time a Sage of mickle lore'


• Keats to Fanny Brawne, August (?) 1820


• Keats to John Taylor, 13 August 1820


• Keats to Percy Bysshe Shelley, 16 August 1820


• Keats to Charles Brown, August (?) 1820


• Keats to Fanny Keats, 23 August 1820


• Keats to Fanny Keats, 11 September 1820


• Keats to Charles Brown, 30 September 1820


• Keats to Mrs Frances Brawne, 24 (?) October 1820


• Keats to Charles Brown, 1 November 1820


• Keats to Charles Brown, 30 November 1820


• Endmatter


• Appendix 1: 'Whenne Alexandre the Conqueroure'


• Notes


• Guide to Classical Names


• Keats's Correspondents and Acquaintances


• Index to Prose


• Index of Titles and First Lines