Beschreibung:

KEATS, John (1795-1821). Poems . London: C. & J. Ollier. 1817. 16 o (162 x 98 mm). Preliminary blank, half-title (imprint on verso), title-page vignette (profile portrait of Spenser with laurel crown), verse dedication to Leigh Hunt [A4r]. Paper watermarked "JOHN DICKINSON 1813." Early 19th-century dark green diced calf, edges of covers decorated with a blind roll, board edges gilt-tooled, marbled edges (neatly rebacked, gilt spine with red morocco lettering-piece); half blue morocco pull-off case. Provenance : purchased from Inman's Book Shop, New York, 2 March 1970. Exhibited : Grolier Club, ' This powerfull rime ,' 1975, no. 56. FIRST EDITION. The young poet's first book, published with the support of Shelley and Leigh Hunt and featuring some of Keats's most significant early poetry, including "I stood tiptoe on a little hill...," "To Hope," "Sleep and Poetry," three verse epistles, plus 17 sonnets and other works. Among the sonnets are "On first looking into Chapman's Homer," written just before daybreak after a night spent reading passages from George Chapman's melodious 17th-century translation of Homer; the sonnet is often regarded as Keats's first major poem. As Sidney Colvin remarks, the book "is full of immaturities, but also of buoyancy and promise; striking the note of rebellion against the poetical methods and conventions of the eighteenth century more vigorously than it had been struck since the publication of the 'Lyrical ballads' twenty years before..." (DNB). The book was a dismal commercial failure and the publishers claimed to have found it necessary to refund some dissatisfied purchasers. Ashley III, p.9; Hayward 231; Macgillivray 1; Sterling 521. A FINE, CRISP COPY.