Keats

Keats
Edward Thomas
The Cyder Press
ISBN: 1-86174-071-9
Literary Non-Fiction, Poetry, History
Reviewed by Dr. Tami Brady

Keats by Edward Thomas was first published in 1916 in The People’s Books’. This is one of a number of works republished by The Cyder Press. The intension of these republications is to showcase long out of print and little known works of a group of individuals known as the Dymock Poets. These Georgian poets gathered at the town of Dymock, in Gloucestershire, to create a literary periodical called New Numbers. Unfortunately, only four issues of New Numbers were published before the World War I forced publication to end.
Thomas was commissioned to write this book as both a biography and an overall review of Keats work. At the time, Thomas had published much prose. He had also created numerous poems which he readily sent to family and friends. However, it was around this point in time that Thomas started focusing on his publication efforts on publishing his own poetry.
These unique aspects create several distinct reasons to re-discovery this book. For reasons I cannot fathom, this book went largely unrecognized and forgotten. This is despite that Thomas does a very thorough job of not only reviewing Keats work but also showing the reader why Keats wrote his works in the first place. This makes the book not only educational but eye opening in some cases. Moreover, within this book, the reader can easily read between the lines and almost hear Thomas planning and creating his own style, feel, and purpose for his future poetry. Thus, this work tells the reader almost as much about Thomas as it does about Keats.