His very look must interest every one in his favour – I suppose they have represented him in his college dress – He seems to me like a young Abelard – A fine Mouth, cheek bones (and this is no joke) full of sentiment; a fine unvulgar nose and plump temples….

1 Richard Carlile (1790–1843), freethinker and publisher, had been arrested on 11 February 1819 for publishing Paine and Palmer’s Principles of Deism. He was sentenced in November to a fine of £1500 and three years’ imprisonment.

2 Henry Hunt (1773–1835), the political orator, had presided at the mass reform meeting at St Peter’s Fields, Manchester, on 16 August 1819 which ended as the Peterloo Massacre. After arrest and bail, he made a triumphal progress into London on 13 September. The crowds were said to number ‘not less than 200,000’.

Notes

The notes are both explanatory and textual. They give the first appearance of each poem, an indication of the textual source if it is not in the editions published in Keats’s lifetime or R. M. Milnes’s Life, Letters, and Literary Remains (1848), and some indication of its place in Keats’s life and development. Textual variants are given where a manuscript reading has been adopted, where the alternative readings are of unusual importance, and, in the case of the more important poems, when they throw light on the poem’s genesis. Unless otherwise stated, Garrod (OSA) agrees with G. Mythological names from classical literature are placed in the Dictionary of Classical Names, which follows the notes (pp. 721–43).

Several substantial quotations from Keats’s important statements on the nature of poetry made in the letters are given in the Notes:

22 November 1817, to Benjamin Bailey (‘the holiness of the Heart’s affections and the truth of the Imagination’, ‘Adam’s dream’, ‘O for a Life of Sensations’), p. 606.

21–7 December 1817, to George and Tom Keats (‘Negative Capability’), p. 611.

13 March 1818, to Benjamin Bailey (‘Things real – things semireal – and no things’), pp. 617–8.

3 May 1818, to J. H. Reynolds (the Chamber of Maiden-Thought), pp. 701–2.

27 October 1818, to Richard Woodhouse (the poetical Character… has no self’, ‘gusto’, ‘the chameleon Poet’), pp. 631–2.

14 February-3 May 1819, to George and Georgiana Keats (‘the Vale of soul-making’), p. 668.

22 September 1819, to Richard Woodhouse (on Isabella being ‘smokeable’), p. 690.

The following abbreviations have been used:

KEATS’S WORKS