Description: This modern scholarly edition of the letters and memoirs of Joseph Severn, English painter and deathbed companion of Keats, is the first ever to include letters from a remarkable collection of recently discovered correspondence. Scott challenges traditional assumptions about Severn's life and character by offering new information about his early artistic success in Italy, his work as an artist in England, and his experiences as British Consul in Rome. The volume also features three important memoirs that previously appeared only in inaccurate excerpts and thirty-three illustrations that demonstrate the range of Severn's talents as a painter. Severn's friends included William Gladstone, Leigh Hunt, John Ruskin, and Mary Shelley. The edition, which includes a detailed chronology of Severn's life, an index of the newly discovered letters, and a ledger of Severn's patrons, paintings, and commissions, will appeal to literary biographers and Keats scholars, as well as art and cultural historians of the Romantic and Victorian eras.
Review Quotes: 'Everyone who loves John Keats has a soft spot for Joseph Severn. Grant F Scott has [...] found hundreds of "new" letters, rescued a long and largely unknown memoir from obscurity, re-edited everything, and surrounded it with a briskly written critical commentary. It's an important job, and difficult to see how anyone could have done it better.' Andrew Motion, The Guardian '...excellent new collection of Severn's letter and memoirs... Professor Scott has produced a work of genuine scholarship with an introduction which is both informative and extremely readable.' Juliet Townsend, The Spectator 'This is a book I've been waiting half a century for-a fresh investigation of Keats's friend Severn by way of his mostly manuscript letters, his unpublished memoirs, and new information about his paintings. Grant Scott has done a major piece of research of the sort that few scholars these days know how to do. His book is a most valuable contribution to the biographical, literary, and cultural understanding of some extremely important nineteenth-century British writers and artists.' Jack Stillinger, Center for Advanced Study, Professor of English, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign '... a fine, welcome book that is a treasure-trove of revelatory and provocative information on a neglected artist and lost cultural period situated between Romanticism and Victorianism. Severn emerges not only as an important artist deserving new attention in his own right, but as a significant conduit figure in the aesthetic passage between Keats and the Pre-Raphaelites. Grant Scott's act of recovery here is to be commended for being at once scholarly, engaging, suggestive of future work, and entertaining.' Hermione de Almeida, Pauline Walter Professor of English and Comparative Literature, The University of Tulsa 'This is a wonderful scholarly enterprise that will be invaluable to students of Keats and his circle.' Duncan Wu, Professor of English Language and Literature, St. C