Letter #71: To Benjamin Bailey, 21 and 25 May 1818

As he starts this letter to Bailey, Keats finds himself in a predicament which we’re sure no other writers ever find themselves in: feeling obligated to write but unable to do so. Here’s what Keats has to say on the matter: “I have this morning such a Lethargy that I cannot write–the reason of my delaying is oftentimes from this feeling–I wait for a proper temper–Now you ask for an immediate answer I do not like to wait even till tomorrow–However I am now so depressed that I have not an Idea to put to paper–my hand feels like lead–and yet it is and unpleasant numbness it does not take away the pain of existence–I don’t know what to write.”

After that portion of the letter, Keats doesn’t return to it for another four days! So he wasn’t kidding about not being in the proper temper. He had a pretty good excuse, though, which is more than the KLP can say for its delinquency in posting this response. Oh sure, we might try to fool you by backdating the post, but we know that you’ll see through that ruse. Ok, we admit it! It’s June and we were suffering from “a Lethargy” when this letter’s 200-year anniversary came around. If Keats can do it, so can we.

Now back to Keats’s reason for his depressed mood: it’s now official that his brother George will be emigrating to America. Keats understands his brother’s wish to seek out a better life. He notes that George “is of too independant and liberal a Mind to get on in trade in this Country–in which a generous Man with a scanty resource must be ruined. I would sooner he should till the ground than bow to a Customer.” George didn’t end up becoming a farmer, but he certainly succeeded in becoming an independent business man, and pillar of the community, in Louisville, Kentucky. One can understand why Keats would be anxious about his younger brother, however. Particularly as Tom’s health remained uncertain, the prospect of George’s departure had to be somewhat bittersweet. The three brothers had lived together almost uninterruptedly for the last few years, but now they have only a month left together. George would never again see Tom. And John would see George just one more time (for several weeks in January 1820) before his own death.

It’s perhaps unsurprising then that Keats tells Bailey on 25 May that his depression continues unabated. Indeed, it seems even worse than when he cut off the letter four days earlier. Keats offers what will become an oft-cited example of his tendency toward “melancholy fit[s]”: “I am in that temper that if I were under Water I would scarcely kick to come to the top.” He adds, “I feel no spur at my Brothers going to America and am almost stony-hearted about his wedding.” But even amidst the depression, Keats still maintains some optimism: “All this will blow over.”

And it certainly will, as Keats summons his energy to trek across Northern England and Scotland from late June to early August, and he writes some amazing letters during that trip. We also know that even if he was “stony-hearted” about George’s wedding, Keats was extremely fond of George’s wife, Georgiana Wylie Keats. The letters Keats sends to George and Georgiana in America contain some of his best epistolary writing, but also some of his most heartfelt expressions of familial love.

In any case, Keats makes his best effort to write something to Bailey despite his despondence. And in the process he devises a lovely metaphor for how the help of one’s friends buoy the spirit in times of trouble. Here it is: “There is a comfort in throwing oneself on the charity of ones friends–‘t is like the albatros sleeping on its wings.” And we’ll just leave it at that.

Text of the letter can be read in Harry Buxton Forman’s 1895 edition (although beware–his dates are wrong). Images courtesy of Harvard below.

Page 1 of Keats’s 21 and 25 May 1818 letter to Benjamin Bailey. Keats Collection, 1814-1891 (MS Keats 1.28). Houghton Library, Harvard University.

Page 2 of Keats’s 21 and 25 May 1818 letter to Benjamin Bailey. Keats Collection, 1814-1891 (MS Keats 1.28). Houghton Library, Harvard University.

Page 3 of Keats’s 21 and 25 May 1818 letter to Benjamin Bailey. Keats Collection, 1814-1891 (MS Keats 1.28). Houghton Library, Harvard University.

Page 4 of Keats’s 21 and 25 May 1818 letter to Benjamin Bailey. Keats Collection, 1814-1891 (MS Keats 1.28). Houghton Library, Harvard University.

Keep on Keatsin’ on; or, Punny Keats

Editor’s Note: As part of the KLP’s ongoing pedagogy initiatives, one of the KLP co-founders, Brian Rejack, has been working with some of the students in his undergraduate romanticism course this semester to have students produce posts for the site. Today’s post is the last in that series. You can read previous ones here and here and here and here.

Spencer Hopkins (Illinois State University)

I’m Spencer (or SPUNcer, as some call me) Hopkins and I am a senior in ISU’s English program. Dr. Rejack’s romanticism class provided a way for me to combine my love of punning and my love of Keats. Throughout the semester I wrote Keats-centered puns on the board in class (and eventually graduated to other kinds of puns). When Dr. Rejack mentioned that I could compile a list of Keats’s puns for the KLP, it was a big boost to my Psyche. No need to write an ode on melancholy, because you’ll find a wealth of Keats’s puns listed below!

  • “The little Gentleman that sometimes lurks in a gossips bowl ought to have come in very likeness of a coasted crab and choaked me outright for not having answered your Letter ere this”—10 May 1817 to Leigh Hunt. Punning on a reference to Midsummer Night’s Dream (“roasted crab”) because Keats was then staying at Margate (on the coast).
  • “I will get over the first part of this (unsaid) Letter as soon as possible”—22 November 1817 to Benjamin Bailey. Playing on “said” meaning something referred to previously.
  • “remember me to each of our Card playing Club–when you die you will all be turned into Dice, and be put in pawn with the Devil–for Cards they crumple up like any King”—22 November 1817 to John Hamilton Reynolds. Playing with terms from cards and chess.
  • “I will not deceive myself that Man should be equal with jove–but think himself very well off as a sort of scullion-Mercury or even a humble Bee”—19 February 1818 to John Hamilton Reynolds. Playing on humility and the bumble-bee (whose name derives from the earlier term, “humble-bee,” which comes from the association with the bee’s humming).
  • “I am your debtor—I must ever remain so—nor do I wish to be clear of my rational debt”—25 May 1818 to Benjamin Bailey. Playing on “national debt” (and indicated with the underlined “r”).
  • “my head is sometimes in such a whirl in considering the million likings and antipathies of our moments—that I can get into no settle strain in my Letters—My Wig! Burns and sentimentality coming across you and frank Floodgate in the office—O scenery that thou shouldst be crush’d between two Puns–I hope Brown does not put them punctually in his journal –If he does I must sit on the cutty-stool all next winter”—13 July 1818 to John Hamilton Reynolds. Lots going on here!
  • “there are many like Sir F. Burdett who like to sit at the head of political dinners—but there are none prepared to suffer in obscurity for their Country … A man now entitlerd Chancellor has the same honour paid to him whether he be a Hog or a Lord Bacon”—14 October 1818 to George and Georgiana Keats.
  • Basically all of the co-written letter (with Charles Brown) to Charles Dilke from 24 January 1819, including:

“not call Mat Snook a relation to Matt-rass”
“This is grown to a conclusion—I had excellent puns in my head but one bad one from Brown has quite upset me”
“N.B. I beg leaf to withdraw all my Puns—they are all a wash, an base uns—”
“*erratum—a large B   *a Bumble B” (referring to Brown)

  • “She is bon a side a thin young—’Oman”—Feb-May 1819 to George and Georgiana Keats. Describing a “Miss H.” who would eventually marry Georgiana’s brother, Henry Wylie.
  • And several from the long journal letter to George and Georgiana Keats in September 1819:

“attitude is every thing as Fusili said when he took up his leg like a Musket to shoot a Swallow just darting behind his shoulder”— Playing on Fusili’s name and a term for a musket (a fusil).
“As for Pun-making I wish it was as good a trade as pin-making—there is very little business of that sort going on now.”
“No more will notes you will say—but notes are different things—though they make together a Pun mote—as the term goes.”
“for I have discovered that a little girl in the house was the Rappee–I assure you she has nearly make me sneeze.” Playing on a variety of snuff (Rappee) and a girl who had been knocking on the wall in the house where Keats was staying.

Letter #70: To Margaret Jeffery, 4 or 5 May 1818

After a long stay in Teignmouth (5 months for Tom, 2 for John), the Keats brothers return to Well Walk, Hampstead. The exact date of their departure is uncertain, but it was certainly after 3 May (when Keats sent a letter to Reynolds from Teignmouth–the “Mansion of Many Apartments” letter no less), and it was long enough before 11 May for them to make it back to London, on which date Keats dined with Haydon. Rollins suggests 4 or 5 May, and we won’t quibble with him here.

The letter sent soon after their departure is to Margaret Jeffery, the mother of Marian (or Marianne, or Maryann) and Sarah Jeffery, two young women with whom the Keats brothers became acquainted while staying at Teignmouth. The letter was written at Honiton, some 32 miles, via Exeter, northeast of Teignmouth. (To explore roads and distances via contemporary sources, check out our post from 21 March with relevant links.) Keats, ever the polite young man, sends this letter to Mrs. Jeffery to thank her for her solicitude regarding Tom’s health: “My Brother has borne his Journey thus far remarkably well. I am too sensible of your anxiety for us not to send this by the Chaise back for you.” What a thoughtful guy. Makes certain people, who will not be named (or rather, who will not name themselves), and who still struggle mightily to remember to send thank you notes (sorry, Mom!), look a bit foolish.

Keats’s brief but characteristically thoughtful letter to Mrs. Jeffery.

[**EDITOR’S NOTE: The information in this paragraph is wrong. We’re leaving it to remind ourselves not to blithely trust Rollins in all things. See update below.**] But to return. It seems from this letter that Tom and John were accompanied on the first stage of their trip by Sarah Jeffery. Keats asks Mrs. Jeffery to “Give our goodbyes again to Marrian and Fanny.” (Side note: there really isn’t any consistency in spelling Marian/Marianne/Maryann/Marrian’s name.) Well what about Sarah? No goodbye for her?? Piece of evidence number one that Sarah was with John and Tom when the letter was written at Honiton. That the letter was sent back “by the Chaise” (i.e. in possession of Sarah on her return trip home) is piece of evidence number two, although it’s also plausible that Keats could have sent the letter back by some anonymous chaise passenger who agreed to deliver the letter to Mrs. Jeffery. Piece of evidence number three: in a letter Sarah Jeffery about a year later (31 May 1819), Keats chastises himself, “Why did I not answer your Honiton Letter?” That seems to suggest that after John and Tom continued their journey toward London, Sarah remained in Honiton and sent them a London-bound letter following fast on the brothers’ heels. Piece of evidence number four: in another letter to Sarah Jeffery, sent on 9 Jun 1819, Keats closes it with, “I shall ever remember our leave-taking with you.” That sentiment seems to suggest that their leave-taking with Sarah was separate from their leave-taking from the rest of the Jeffery family.

How do we know of these letters, you ask? Thought you never would! The correspondence with the Jeffery family comes rather late to the Keats story: 1893 to be exact. In that year Albert Forbes Sieveking (mostly remembered now for his history of gardens, The Praise of Gardens) came into possession of four letters by Keats, three by Tom, and a copy of Keats’s “Sonnet on Blue.” These manuscripts had been preserved by Marian Jeffery, who married Isaac Sparke Prowse in 1829, with whom she had a child in 1836, William Jeffery Prowse. Not much is known about the elder Prowse, except that he came from Torquay (just 10 miles or so down the coast from Teignmouth), that he was enrolled as a student in the local school in Torquay in 1805 (see J. T. White’s History of Torquay, published in 1878), that he was a wine merchant, and that he died in 1844. Young William was then adopted by his uncle, John Sparke Prowse, with whom he lived in Greenwich. A year before that, in July 1843, the boy had fallen into the harbor and was rescued by a 12-year-old W. A. Goss, who was awarded £5 and “the Royal Humane Society’s medal for an act of bravery” (J. T. White again). Good work, young man!

William Jeffrery Prowse, having cheated death thanks to the heroism of Goss, grew up to become a celebrated comic writer, though like so many people in this story, he died young, at just 34 years of age in 1870. He was at the peak of his success in the 1860s, when he was one of the contributing writers for Fun, the periodical founded by Tom Hood, son of Thomas Hood and Jane Hood (née Reynolds–the Keats connections abound!). While writing for the magazine Prowse rubbed elbows with Hood, W. S. Gilbert (before he found his more famous career trajectory), Thomas William Robertson, Clement Scott, and Thomas Archer, among others. It was to Archer that Prowse gave the Keats-family manuscripts that had been passed to him by his mother. When Archer died in 1893, the letters were passed on to his son, Launcelot Archer, who then conveyed them to Sieveking.

Sieveking published the four Keats letters, along with significant commentary, in The Fortnightly Review in December 1893. A few things of interest to draw to your attention. Devotees of the history of Keats’s letters may know that the letters to Fanny Brawne (coming starting July 2019–get ready!) were not published until long after Keats’s death (in 1878 to be precise), and when they were published, let’s just say some people (ahem, Matthew Arnold) were not too pleased about it. Arnold, of course, was not the only one, but his comments about those letters are probably the most famous. For just one sample, how about this for a verdict: “one is tempted to say that Keats’s love-letter is the love-letter of a surgeon’s apprentice. It has in its relaxed self-abandonment something underbred and ignoble, as of a youth ill brought up, without the training which teaches us that we must put some constraint upon our feelings and upon the expression of them. It is the sort of love-letter of a surgeon’s apprentice which one might hear read out in a breach of promise case, or in the Divorce Court. The sensuous man speaks in it, and the sensuous man of a badly bred and badly trained sort.”

But that was back in 1878, and by 1893 the debates about the propriety of publishing personal correspondence had been long settled, right? Sieveking, who devotes several pages to the question, shows that it had not. As he was publishing these newly-rediscovered letters, you might imagine that Sieveking was cool with publishing letters, even if they might be embarrassing to an author. And you’d be right. Clearly he felt the need to defend his decision because other writers were still complaining about the Fanny Brawne letters! Sieveking’s main named antagonist is William Watson, a poet himself, and the author of an essay in August 1890 in the National Review titled “The Punishment of Genius.” Watson’s argument is essentially: “ugh, good thing Keats is dead so he doesn’t have to be embarrassed all the time!” Got news for you, Watson, Keats and embarrassment was kind of a thing when he was alive too (just ask Christopher Ricks). Here’s a choice bit, in which Watson sarcastically lists off all the great wishes for fame that Keats had realized by 1890 and would have witnessed if, as Shelley claimed, Adonais “lives, he wakes”: “He will have seen the passionate letters to his somewhat mundane goddess catalogued in sale lists, and knocked down under the auctioneer’s hammer.” The KLP will officially change its Twitter handle to “Somewhat Mundane Goddess Project” in July 2019 when the letters to Fanny Brawne begin. Just so you know.

There are some more-than-somewhat mundane matters stuck in Watson’s craw as well, to which we here at the KLP must take exception. Watson has the gall to slag off “the painstaking modern editor!” In this case, Harry Buxton Forman is the one Watson has in mind. What are Forman’s sins? How about this one: “Keats wrote in a letter, ‘I much wait,’ instead of ‘I must wait,’ and Mr Forman carefully preserves the blunder.” Who would ever care about such things?? Only fools and charlatans, for sure. The KLP wholeheartedly agrees with Watson’s assessment below:

“Minutely and uselessly laborious idleness” indeed. Why bother devoting one’s time to the minute particulars of something like Keats’s letters…

But back to Sieveking and his response to Watson. Here’s what he has to say about such matters: “Much has been said by the critics as to the bad taste and indiscretion of publishing over-detailed biographies and letters of a private nature. But there is nothing in these letters which can by any possibility suggest the desirability of suppression. And even had there been, I do not think I should have yielded to the desire. If we are to know anything at all about a great poet after his death, I am of opinion we can hardly know too much.” To which we say, Mr. Sieveking: same.

To read the rest of Sieveking’s commentary, along with his transcripts of the letters, head over to the Fortnightly Review via Hathitrust. We’ll hear more about the Jeffery sisters in early June when Keats writes to Sarah and Marian.

**UPDATE–7 June 2018**
Turns out there are some inaccuracies in Rollins’s reading of the Jeffery family. First, it appears that the spelling of their name was JeffERY, not JeffREY. Confirmation of this fact comes largely from the fairly consistent spelling of William Jeffery Prowse’s name in that manner in publications mentioning or by him from the time. It also appears that Rollins’s supposition about Sarah traveling with John and Tom to Honiton is wrong. The problem that led to Rollins’s mistakes was his assumption that there were three sisters, Marian, Sarah, and Fanny. Alas, Fanny was a nickname for Sarah, whose full name was Sarah Frances Jeffery. So when Keats asks Mrs. Jeffery to give his goodbyes to Marian and Fanny, that means Marian and Sarah.

Because Rollins assumed that Sarah and Fanny were two different people, he also makes a mistake in identifying the recipient of the two letters Keats sends in May and June 1819. The first is addressed simply to “Miss Jeffry.” The second is to the same, although without the surviving manuscript, we don’t know exactly how it was addressed (or how Keats spelled the name). As Robert Gittings pointed out in his 1970 edition of Keats’s selected letters, the “Miss Jeffry” in question would have been Marian (as the eldest daughter, she would have been referred to as Miss Jeffery). Rollins mistake is compounded by Keats asking about “Fanny” in his 31 May 1819 letter, and also offering “my Compts to Mrs–your Sister.” Rollins assumes that the writer must be Sarah, because he assumes that the new “Mrs” was Marian, who did marry Isaac Sparke Prowse, but not until ten years after Keats’s letter. It seems, therefore, that Sarah/Fanny, not Marian, may have wedded sometime between May 1818 and May 1819.

Ok, takeaways: Tom and John traveled alone when they left Teignmouth, “Fanny” and “Sarah” are in fact one person (Sarah Frances), and Keats’s 1819 letters are to Marian, not to Sarah. Keats’s bit in his 9 June 1819 letter, “I shall ever remember our leave-taking with you,” is also cast in a different light knowing the you in question was Marian. That sentiment lends credence to the idea that there was some sort of close attachment, albeit perhaps mostly a one-sided one. For more on Marian and Keats, see our post about the 4 June 1818 letter.

Letter #69: To John Hamilton Reynolds, 3 May 1818

There are many letters that we wish still existed in their original manuscripts–here’s looking at you, negative capability–but today’s letter surely ranks pretty highly on the list. In this case the reason is different that it is with the negative capability letter, which we have only via John Jeffrey’s unreliable transcript (curse you, John Jeffrey! But also, thanks for trying at least). Today’s letter to Reynolds comes to us from a transcript by Richard Woodhouse, whose work can be trusted much more than that of Jeffrey. What we miss out on with this letter is Keats making a visual pun as he crosses his letter! We know it exists because Woodhouse makes a note explaining it. But oh my, it’d be great to see precisely how it looked in that original manuscript.

If you’re new here, you might not know what a “crossed letter” is. So here’s a primer for you. They are “fun” to read. Not the easiest task, that’s for sure. It’s a good thing Woodhouse possessed such a diligent bureaucratic sensibility, which is really put to the test with a letter like this one. And actually, it’s long past time that we recognize the heroic efforts of Woodhouse’s clerks. They actually did the majority of the transcribing, after which Woodhouse would look over their work and offer corrections where he identified them. As far as we know here at the KLP, no one has ever attempted to do any research into who those clerks might have been. But they’re important, too. Woodhouse shouldn’t get to hog all the credit!

But back to Keats. Here’s the bit when he makes his joke with the crossing:

Have you not seen a Gull, an ord, a sea Mew, or any thing to bring this Line to a proper length, and also fill up this clear part; that like the Gull I may  dip–I hope, not out of sight–and also, like a Gull, I hope to be lucky in a good sized fish–This crossing a letter is not without its association–for chequer work leads us naturally to a Milkmaid, a Milkmaid to Hogarth Hogarth to Shakespeare Shakespear to Hazlitt–Hazlitt to Shakespeare and thus by merely pulling as apron string we set a pretty peal of Chimes at work–Let them chime on while, with your patience,–I will return to Wordsworth

Let’s unpack what’s going on here. Again, we only know what’s going on because Woodhouse (and here it is Woodhouse, not his clerk) offers this note of explanation: “(Here the first page of the letter is crossed–and the 2 first lines to this mark  are written in the clear space left as a margin –& the word “dip” is the first word that dips into the former writing–.”

Woodhouse’s note explaining Keats’s crossing of the letter.

Here it’s useful to return again to how crossing works. Keats would have turned back to the first page of his letter, turned the paper 90 degrees, and written perpendicularly in relation to the written text from earlier in the letter. Because there would have been a bit of a margin on the left side (now the top of the page after being turned 90 degrees) which is “this clear part.” It seems possible that the sentence begins (“Have you not seen…”) on the fourth page and concludes there with “bring this Line to a proper length,” at which point the remaining text (“and also fill up this clear part; that like the Gull I may dip”) would fit in the margin of page one before dipping into the original next. But Woodhouse’s note implies that all of the two sentences appear cross-wise on page one. So who knows. This is why we need to see the original MS!

Another reason we might want to the original MS is to know where underlining actually occurs in Keats’s text and which instances of underlining are added by Woodhouse and clerks. (Regular readers will recall that Keats and underlining is a favorite arcane topic of the KLP’s Brian Rejack.) Is the “dip” underlined by Keats in order to emphasize his play on the dip into the letter’s earlier “sea of prose”? If it is, what about this more famous bit: “We see not the ballance of good and evil. We are in a Mist–We are now in that state–We feel the ‘burden of the Mystery.'” Did Keats underline that third “We” to distinguish between the inclusive “We” of the first two phrases and his shift toward an inclusive we (i.e. Keats and Reynolds)? What if he underlined it because that particular “We” was right in the middle of another word? Remember it’s a crossed letter, so it could certainly be the case that the word We is in a Mist because it can’t be seen very easily (remember earlier, Keats’s words dip “I hope, not out of sight”). Or what if a clerk mistook a stroke of the pen from one of the perpendicular words for an underlining of that third “We“? These are the kinds of questions that we need to have answered! One last thing and then we’ll move on–this is a long letter! Of course, it’s crossed, so there’s that. But still, it’s really long. One wonders if Keats was using larger paper than the typical 23 X 18 cm (approximately) sheets of most of his letter from earlier in 1818. Perhaps he had by this point purchased some of the 33 x 21 cm (approximately) sheets he’d use during his Northern Tour in June and July. Again, crucial questions!

If you’re less interested in the textual details like these, perhaps you’d rather hear about what makes this letter so remarkable. Yes, let’s talk about the “Mansion of Many Apartments.” This is Keats’s “simile of human life,” which begins in “the infant or thoughtless Chamber, in which we remain as long as we do not think–We remain there a long while, and notwithstanding the doors of the second Chamber remain wide open, showing a bright appearance, we care not to hasten to it.” Notice the continuing attention to vision and light, which Keats began with respect to hoping that Reynolds would be able to see the crossed writing. Maybe the idea that Keats would play with the crossing and “We” being in a mist isn’t all that crazy?? But to return, we arrive at the second chamber, or “the Chamber of Maiden-Thought,” where “we become intoxicated with the light and the atmosphere, we see nothing but pleasant wonders, and think of delaying there for ever in delight.” Here think of a youthful Keats writing poems in which he’s in awe of flowers, rolling around in the grass, pining for the moon, etc. That intoxicating “atmosphere” soon produces a different kind of experience of this chamber:

However among the effects this breathing is father of is that tremendous one of sharpening one’s vision into the heart and nature of Man–of convincing ones nerves that the World is full of Misery and Heartbreak, Pain, Sickness and oppression–whereby This Chamber of Maiden Thought becomes gradually darken’d and at the same time on all sides of it many doors are set open–but all dark–all leading to dark passages–We see not the ballance of good and evil. We are in a Mist–We are now in that state–We feel the ‘burden of the Mystery,’ To this point was Wordsworth come, as far as I can conceive when he wrote ‘Tintern Abbey’ and it seems to me that his Genius is explorative of those dark Passages. Now if we live, and go on thinking, we too shall explore them.

Of course, Keats did live (though only a few more years), and we daresay he did some high quality exploring of those dark passages. Even here, though, at the end of the letter Keats gives a hint of what might be found at the end of those corridors leading to further chambers. It’s a lovely sentiment, and one that we think Keats puts in practice in his life and work: “Tom has spit a leetle blood this afternoon, and that is rather a damper–but I know–the truth is there is something real in the World Your third Chamber of Life shall be a lucky and a gentle one–stored with the wine of love–and the Bread of Friendship.” As Keats himself writes earlier in this same letter, “axioms in philosophy are not axioms until they are proved upon our pulses.” So let’s strive to bring the wine of love and the bread of friendship into this world of “Misery and Heartbreak, Pain, Sickness and oppression.”

To read the rest of this remarkable letter, you can view images from Woodhouse (and clerk) below, courtesy of Harvard. Or read the text from Harry Buxton Forman’s 1895 edition here.

Page 1 of Woodhouse’s transcript of Keats’s 3 May 1818 letter to John Hamilton Reynolds. Keats Collection, 1814-1891 (MS Keats 3.3). Houghton Library, Harvard University.

Page 2 of Woodhouse’s transcript of Keats’s 3 May 1818 letter to John Hamilton Reynolds. Keats Collection, 1814-1891 (MS Keats 3.3). Houghton Library, Harvard University.

Page 3 of Woodhouse’s transcript of Keats’s 3 May 1818 letter to John Hamilton Reynolds. Keats Collection, 1814-1891 (MS Keats 3.3). Houghton Library, Harvard University.

Page 4 of Woodhouse’s transcript of Keats’s 3 May 1818 letter to John Hamilton Reynolds. Keats Collection, 1814-1891 (MS Keats 3.3). Houghton Library, Harvard University.

Page 5 of Woodhouse’s transcript of Keats’s 3 May 1818 letter to John Hamilton Reynolds. Keats Collection, 1814-1891 (MS Keats 3.3). Houghton Library, Harvard University.

Page 6 of Woodhouse’s transcript of Keats’s 3 May 1818 letter to John Hamilton Reynolds. Keats Collection, 1814-1891 (MS Keats 3.3). Houghton Library, Harvard University.

Page 7 of Woodhouse’s transcript of Keats’s 3 May 1818 letter to John Hamilton Reynolds. Keats Collection, 1814-1891 (MS Keats 3.3). Houghton Library, Harvard University.