Selected Poetry

This brand-new collection of Keatss best poetry includes all of his best-known poems as well as a sampling of less well-known ones. While many of his contemporaries were quick to acknowledge Keats talent before his death from illness at the age of twenty-five snobbery and political animosity caused the Tory press to demonise and ridicule him as a Cockney poet. Keats authored three volumes of poetry before his death. Although continuous financial worries and the death of those he held most had tested him he rejected the idea that life was a valley of tears in favour of the idea of a vale of Soul-making. His final volume which contains the great odes and the unfinished Hyperion attests to an extraordinary maturity of strength. His poetry and outstanding letters demonstrate a spirit of questing vitality and profound awareness.