John Keats: A New Life

John Keats: A New Life by Roe, Nicholas. hardcover edition. ISBN: 9780300124651.

This landmark biography of celebrated Romantic poet John Keats explodes entrenched conceptions of him as a delicate, overly sensitive, tragic figure. Instead, Nicholas Roe reveals the real flesh-and-blood poet: a passionate man driven by ambition but prey to doubt, suspicion, and jealousy; sure of his vocation while bitterly resentful of the obstacles that blighted his career; devoured by sexual desire and frustration; and in thrall to alcohol and opium. Through unparalleled original research, Roe arrives at a fascinating reassessment of Keatss entire life, from his early years at Keatss Livery Stables through his harrowing battle with tuberculosis and death at age 25. Zeroing in on crucial turning points, Roe finds in the locations of Keatss poems new keys to the nature of his imaginative quest.Roe is the first biographer to provide a full and fresh account of Keatss childhood in the City of London and how it shaped the would-be poet. The mysterious early death of Keats