BAUMAN RARE BOOKS 4 01KEATS, John. Lamia, Isabella, The Eve of St. Agnes, and Other Poems. London, 1820. 12mo, 20th-century full red morocco gilt. $23,500 First edition of Keats’ third and greatest volume of poetry, the last issued during his lifetime, containing two of his finest poems, “Ode to a Nightingale” and “Ode on a Grecian Urn.” Includes the first printed appearance of “Hyperion,” “Ode on Melancholy,” “To Autumn,” and “Ode to Psyche,” among others. In March 1819, following the death of his brother Tom, Keats emerged from a period of depression and began an astonishing three months of creative energy, producing “Ode to a Nightingale,” “Ode on a Grecian Urn,” and “Ode on Melancholy,” among other works. These poems were the best and last significant poems Keats was to produce; within months it was discovered that he had contracted tuberculosis while nursing his brother, and in the last months of his life he produced little. “By the contents of this volume Keats lives as one of the great English poets… [His] imaginative range is wide, from the pathos and grimness of ‘Isabella’ to the elemental majesty of ‘Hyperion,’ from the glowing romance color of the ‘Eve of St. Agnes’ to the classical enchantments of ‘Lamia,’ and from these to the brooding inwardness of the meditative odes… For easy and assured poetic mastery much of his work in this volume stands next in English literature to that of the great Elizabethans from whom he seems lineally descended… Almost immediately on the appearance of the volume its true value was recognized” (DNB). Of the 13 poems collected here, only two—”Ode to a Nightingale” and “Ode on a Grecian Urn”—appeared previously in periodicals (both anonymously). Faint text offsetting to page 97, interior otherwise fine. A beautiful copy. First Edition Of Keats’ Lamia, His Last And Greatest Volume Of Poetry
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy NDg3OTM=