Keats, John

Lamia, Isabella, the Eve of St. Agnes, and Other Poems. London: Taylor & Hessey, 1820



12mo (6 1/2 x 4 in.; 165 x 100 mm). Half-title, publisher's 8–page advertisement at the end. Full dark blue crushed morocco panelled gilt, the spine in 6 compartments (2 reserved for title and author) with acorn cornerpieces and floral tool at center, the dentelles richly gilt, blue holland endpapers, edges gilt.

Grolier/English 72; Hayward 233; MacGillivray 3

First edition of the poet's third and last book. Taylor and Hessey originally planned to issue the last of Keats's poems in five separate pamphlets at a half-crown each but quickly realized that it was eminently more salable as a volume of poems at 7s.6d. On 24 June publisher Taylor wrote his father that "Next week Keats's new Volume of poems will be published,and if it does not sell well, I think nothing will ever sell again—I am sure of this for poetic Genius there is not his equal living, & I would compare him against any one with either Milton or Shakespeare for Beauties." The book contains not only the notable poems mentioned on the title-page, but also with the unfinished epic "Hyperion" and three of the four great odes: "Ode to a Nightingale"; "Ode on Melancholy"; and "Ode on a Grecian Urn."

For the first time, critical accalim of Keats's poems was not limited to his small circle of friends. "The reviewers were won over ... all to a measure of admiration," wrote Keats's biographer Robert Gittings, and that "Keats had at last the consolation of being fully reviewed, recognized, praised and extensively quoted and reprinted in his lifetime, a success by no means accorded to all poets." Yet favorable public notice was of cheap comfort to Keats, who, because of declining health, once more abandoned "Hyperion," which was to be his great work and equal in length to "Endymion." Perceiving himself as a failure at the end of his brief life and poetic career, the dispirited Keats requested his tombstone be inscribed with a quotation from Congreve: "Here lies one whose name was in water writ."