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Two Early Reviews of Keats's First Volume

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 December 2020

Roberta D. Cornelius
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Extract

It has been the accepted opinion that Keats's first volume received very little attention at the time of its publication in 1817. This is no doubt due to the fact that until recently the only review known was that by Leigh Hunt published in three parts in the Examiner for June 1, July 6, and July 13, 1817. In 1917, Sir Sidney Colvin1 brought to light two others, namely that in the September issue of the Eclectic Review and that in Constable's Scots and Edinburgh Magazine for October, 1817. It has been my good fortune to discover two additional reviews which seem to have been overlooked by students of Keats, although they are apparently the earliest published.

Type
Research Article
Information
PMLA , Volume 40 , Issue 1: American Bibliography for 1924 , March 1925 , pp. 193 - 210
Copyright
Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 1925

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References

1 John Keats, His Life and Poetry, His Friends, Critics, and After-Fame, London, 1917, p. 132. In his earlier study of Keats Sir Sidney, after mentioning the review in the Examiner, added: “and several of the provincial papers noticed the book” (Keats, Eng. Men of Letters, 1887, p. 65; this statement was repeated by Professor Hoops in Engl. Stud. XXI, 307). Such notices, however, can hardly be dignified as reviews. Also the use of the phrase “provincial papers” makes it clear that Sir Sidney did not have in mind the reviews to which the present article calls attention.

2 Colvin, op. cit., p. 84.

3 The Poems of John Keats, 4th ed. revised, N. Y., 1921, p. 387.

4 Correspondence and Table Talk of Beniamin Robert Haydon: With a Memoir by His Son, F. W. Haydon, London, 1876, II, 2.

5 For an account of Haydon's part in the controversy over the Elgin marbles, see The Life of B. R. Haydon… from his Autobiography, ed. Tom Taylor 2nd ed., London, 1853, I, 269-73; 294-315.

6 Life of B. R. Haydon, ed. cit., I, 329. The entry is given under the date 1816.

7 Correspondence and Table Talk of B. R. Haydon, II, 6.

8 European Mag., LXXI, 493.

9 European Mag., LXXI, 422.

10 Examiner, No. 492.

11 Examiner, Nos. 497, 498.

12 European Mag., LXXI, 282.

13 The Atheneum, or The Spirit of the English Magazines, II (Boston, October 15, 1817), pp. 50-51.

14 See Colvin's Keats, London, 1920, p. 24.

15 European Mag. (Oct. 1816) LXX, 365.

16 See the letter of Mathew as quoted by Colvin, John Keats, etc., 1920, p. 25. The text of the letter is quoted in part by R. M. Milnes, The Life, Letters, and Literary Remains of John Keats, N. Y., 1848, p. 22.

17 See above, p. 203.

18 R. M. Milnes, op. cit., p. 22.