Letters of John Keats to His Family and Friends

About the book

These letters bring the making of poetry into contact with friendship, family news, travel, money, illness, and ordinary amusement. Writing to brothers, friends, and fellow writers, Keats moves easily from playful invention or a recent walk into reflections on imagination, literary ambition, and the difficulty of understanding experience. Ideas that later became central to discussions of his poetry emerge in the provisional language of conversation rather than as finished doctrine. Personal affection and practical anxieties keep those reflections grounded in a life unfolding under pressure. Sidney Colvin's edited collection allows readers to follow the changing concerns and recurring habits of attention across different correspondents, discovering a voice whose humor and curiosity remain as important as its moments of insight.

• Poetic imagination
• Friendship
• Creative life

Why read it

Read it for the conversational intelligence and playfulness surrounding Keats's best known reflections on poetry.

English letters edited by Sidney Colvin