Speaking to Claire Tomalin about Keats

[Cath]

Hello gentle readers!

This evening I was at a Claire Tomalin lecture about Jane Austen at the South Bank Centre in London and afterwards she did a book signing. Thinking of our online conversations about how great a Keats biography by Claire Tomalin or Richard Holmes would be, I took the opportunity to ask her whether she had thought of it. She said that so many of her friends have already written biographies of him, but that she genuinely loved his poetry. She mentioned the biographical introduction she wrote on Keats for a selection of his poetry - I had already read this, but I think we have too few biographies of Keats by women and I'd be interested in her perspective & how it would add to or differ to Aileen Ward's or those written by men. Sadly I think she is planning to write a biography on George Herbert instead. I got the impression she thought the Keats biographical market was already over-saturated, although she didn't say this directly.

If I ever meet Richard Holmes, I shall try & "work on" him too!

Take care all!
Cath

[Saturn]

Do do!

[Cybele]

Wow. Who wouldn't love a Richard Holmes Keats bio!

[ColSilver]

Yes, I agree - I'd give my eye teeth for a biography of Keats by Richard Holmes. His Shelley, The Pursuit is perhaps my favourite biography of all time, and one of the books that got me hooked on the Romantics in the first place. I'm lucky enough to live near Marlow in Buckinghamshire and vividly remember the first time I went down there to see Shelley's old house, Albion House. Even now driving past it makes the hairs on the back of my neck rise - all thanks to Richard Holmes.

[Cybele]

I still have yet to get my hands on that Shelley bio!
But, his biography of Coleridge made me love STC all the more. His sympathetic yet entertaining narration put flesh on the life of that older Romantic era poet, & made him a real person to me.

[CasaMagni]

Hello all,

Not to be too controversial with my first post but, in light of the seemingly universal praise which Holmes' bio received, I thought it was interesting that one of the original reviews, by Shelley and his circle editor K.N. Cameron, was pretty scathing. The first page can be accessed here:

http://www.jstor.org/stable/30213180

and the rest by registering for a free account.

Best wishes,
CM.

[ColSilver]

Not to be too controversial with my first post but, in light of the seemingly universal praise which Holmes' bio received, I thought it was interesting that one of the original reviews, by Shelley and his circle editor K.N. Cameron, was pretty scathing.

Hi, thanks for that interesting comment. I had no idea that someone had given Holmes' Pursuit a bad review (it's truly baffling to me), but it immediately reminded me of William Hazlitt's essay "On Criticism" which sums up the situation nicely, imho:-

http://www.blupete.com/Literature/Essay ... ticism.htm

[CasaMagni]

Hazlitt sums up everything wonderfully, just my favourite prose writer of all - well, except Swift maybe:)

[Cathat906]

I still have yet to get my hands on that Shelley bio!
But, his biography of Coleridge made me love STC all the more. His sympathetic yet entertaining narration put flesh on the life of that older Romantic era poet, & made him a real person to me.

STC certainly had a few interesting twists and turns in his life. I love for example in 1793 he joins the Royal Dragoons under the most fabulous false name - Silas Tomkyn Comberbache - but only lasts a few months before his older brothers arrange his discharge from service for 'reasons of insanity'.

On the theme of false names, Keats at one point was considering publishing his works under the female pseudonym 'Lucy Vaughan Lloyd'.