Lives of the Great Romantics, Part II:

Keats, Coleridge and Scott by their Contemporaries

In this second collection of biographical accounts of Romantic writers, the characters of Keats, Coleridge and Scott are recalled by their contemporaries, offering intriguing insights into their lives and writings, as well as into the art of nineteenth-century biography.

Keat's early death, at the age of 25, shocked his contemporaries. Memoir writers attempted to capture the tragedy of what they saw as thwarted promise, while other of his friends were too stunned and grief-stricken to put pen to paper until years later. The memoirs in this collection explore the Romantic cult of the poet, sharing Keats's own reluctance to turn his private life into public art.

Coleridge, a famous theologian and notorious drug-user, was seen by his contemporaries as both as seedy degenerate and as 'the sage of Highgate', an eloquent defender of the Established Church. Not surprisingly therefore the reminiscences collected here struggle to present a clear, coherent image of their subject, whether heroic or disreputable.

Recent reappraisals of Sir Walter Scott's work accompany a revived curiosity about his private personality and public persona. Memoirs selected here include material from the most carefully fashioned of all presentations of Scott, a biography written by his son-in-law J G Lockhart, as well as from the many dissident and more informal recollections of his varied literary acquaintances.

Contents

Volume 1
John Keats
With extracts from: Barry Cornwall, 'Town Conversation' London Magazine (1821); Shelley, Adonis (1821); John Hamilton Reynolds, The Garden of Florence and Other Poems (1821); Leigh Hunt, Lord Byron and his Contemporaries (1828);'Novels of the Season' Fraser's Magazine (1831); Coleridge, Specimens of Table Talk of Samuel Taylor Coleridge, ed. by H N Coleridge (1835); Walter Cooper Dendy, The Philosophy of Mystery (1841) and Legends of the Lintel and the Ley (1863); Thomas Medwin, The Life of Percy Bysshe Shelly (1847); Richard Monckton Milnes, Life, Letters and Literary Remains of John Keats (1848); Leigh Hunt, Autobiography (1850); Benjamin Robert Haydon, The Life of Benjamin Robert Haydon (1853); Charles Cowden Clarke, 'Recollections of Keats', Atlantic Monthly, vii (1861); Joseph Severn; 'On Vicissitudes of Keats's fame', Atlantic Monthly, XI (1863); Charles and Mary Cowden Clarke, Recollections of Writers (1878); Sir Benjamin Richardson,'An Esculapian Poet - John Keats' (1824); Joseph Severn, The Life and Letters of Joseph Severn (1892); Charles Brown, The Life of John Keats (1937)

Volume 2
Samuel Taylor Coleridge
With extracts from: Thomas Love Peacock, Melincourt (1817); Thomas Brown the Elder, Bath (1818); Charles Lamb, 'Christ's Hospital Five and Thirty Years Ago' (1823); William Hazlitt, 'My First Acquaintance with Poets' (1823); William Hazlitt, 'Mr Coleridge' (1825); Leigh Hunt, Lord Byron and Some of His Contemporaries (1828); Unsigned, 'Memoir of Samuel Taylor Coleridge' (1829); John A Heraud, An Oration on the Death of Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1834); C Le Grice, 'College Reminiscences of Mr Coleridge' (1834); Thomas De Quincey, 'Samuel Taylor Coleridge by The English Opium-Eater' (1835); Specimens of the Table Talk of the Late Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1835); Thomas Allsop, Letters Conversations and Recollections of S. T. Coleridge (1836); Clement Carlyon, Early Years and Late Reflections (1836-58); Joseph Cottle, Early Recollections (1837); James Gillman, The Life of Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1838); Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Biographia Literaria, second edition (1847); Thomas Noon Talfourd, Final Memorials of Charles Lamb (1848); Charles Cuthbert Southey, The Life and Correspondence of Robert Southey (1849-50); William Wordsworth, The Prelude (1850); Christopher Wordsworth, Memoirs of Wordsworth (1851); Thomas Carlyle, Life of John Sterling (1898); John Wood Walter, Selections from the Letters of Robert Southey (1856); R W Emerson, English Traits (1856); John Davy, Fragmentary Remains (1858); Thomas Colley Grattan, Beaten Paths (1862); Barry Cornwall, Charles Lamb (1866); Willaim Jerdan, Men I Have Known (1866); Henry Crabb Robinson, Diary (1869); Eliza Meteyard, A Group of Englishmen (1871); Charles Julian Young, A Memoir of Charles Mayne Young (1871); Dorothy Wordsworth, Recollections of a Tour Made in Scotland (1874)

Volume 3
Sir Walter Scott
With extracts from: William Hazlitt, The Spirit of the Age (1825); Joanna Baillie, 'Lines on the Death of Sir Walter Scott' (1832); David Vedder, Memoir of Sir Walter Scott, Bart. (1832); James Hogg, The Domestic Matters and Private Life of Sir Walter Scott (1834); Basil Hall, Fragments of Voyages and Travels (1834); Washington Irving, Abbotsford and Newstead Abbey (1835); R P Gillies, Recollections of Sir Walter Scott (1837); R P Gillies, Memoirs of a Literary Veteran (1851); John Gibson Lockhart, Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott, Bart. (1838); Lady Charlotte Bury, Diary Illustrative of the Times of George the Fourth (1838-9); Charles Matthews, Memoirs (1838-9); Horace Smith, 'A Graybeard's Gossip about his Literary Acquaintance (1848); Henry Cockburn (Lord Cockburn), Memorials of His Time (1856); John James Audubon, The Life and Adventures of John James Audubon, the Naturalist: Edited, from Materials Supplied by his Widow, by Robert Buchanan (1869); Robert Chambers, Life of Sir Walter Scott (1871); Robert Carruthers, 'Abbotsford Notanda'; including extracts from William Laidlaw, Recollections of Sir Walter Scott (1871); Susan Ferrier, 'Recollections of Visits to Ashistiel and Abbotsford' (1874); Maria Edgeworth, Life and Letters (1894)

Reviews

‘Whilst celebrated accounts like these will obviously be of interest to students of the major Romantics, the experienced scholar may initially wonder what he or she is supposed to derive from their re-publication. Thankfully, new introductions and headnotes offer fresh insights into even the most famous passages. Rigorously (sometimes ruthlessly) contextualizing each extract, and relating them where appropriate to biographical theory, these introductions will constitute the real interest of the series for those already acquainted with the works they introduce…. In sum, then, Lives of the Great Romantics is not simply an absorbing collection of Romantic biographies but an important contribution to the growing debate about the biographical discipline itself. As such, it will be of great interest to students and scholars alike.’
– Arthur Bradley, The Byron Journal

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