Portrait of Keats by Joseph Severn: photo-intaglio from a The Burial-place of Keats: etched by Arthur Evershed from Ivi PREFACE. BY THE EDITOR. THE volumes now laid before the public have occupied the leisure hours of some years, and have been delayed by various circumstances which need not be detailed. The most gratifying of these was an interruption of several months during which my leisure had to be devoted to the preparation of two new editions of Shelley's Poetical Works, to meet a demand consequent on the favourable reception of the former edition. The only other cause of delay that concerns the public is the frequent discovery of fresh material; and in this respect I hope that Keats's many readers will find compensation. Partly by the knowledge that much unused material existed, and partly by the feeling that the editions of Keats's writings current up to the present time left room for one on the lines of my library edition of Shelley, I was led to undertake this work; and in carrying it out I have followed the same principles of revision as in the other case, namely to gather together everything I could find from the hand of the poet, to establish the text as nearly as possible in accordance with what the poet wrote or meant to write, to make no changes without record,' and to elucidate and illustrate from such printed and manuscript sources as were open to me. The three volumes of poetry printed during Keats's life have been reproduced upon this plan; and their contents have been collated with all available manuscripts and printed issues of authority, variations being given in foot-notes. The posthumous poems in order of date follow the three printed volumes; and the chronology has only been interrupted wittingly in the matter of Otho the Great, King Stephen, and The Cap and Bells. Here it was impossible to preserve the real order, because Keats had other things in progress at the same time as Otho, and these, if strict chronological order were followed, would have to be interspersed among the acts and scenes of the tragedy. It seemed better therefore to set the dramatic attempts apart as a kind of appendix, to be completed by the less happy experiment The Cap and Bells, and to leave the real poetical work of Keats to close characteristically with La Belle Dame sans Merci and the beautiful sonnet which was really the last thing he wrote in verse. The literary fragments and notes in prose naturally follow the posthumous poetry; and the letters come 'Not to detain the reader at the outset with details of a technical kind, I have set apart among the Addenda to the Preface some notes relating to spelling, inflexion, &c., and some lists of altered words. last, in order of date,-those to Fanny Brawne last of all and apart. Each volume has its appendix of matters related to its own particular contents; and the general appendix in Volume IV consists of personal recollections, criticisms, &c., not related to any particular volume, but to the life and works of Keats generally. The materials used for the present edition, besides what are generally known through published volumes, include, I believe, all that is most important. Whatever may remain in the hands of the American section of the Keats family is likely to be of minor importance, seeing how largely Lord Houghton was supplied with material from that source. His Lordship kindly offered to let me go over again the papers at Fryston Hall which served as the basis of his many editions; and I regret that circumstances have prevented me from availing myself of that privilege; but, as I have made full use of Lord Houghton's valuable series of books, the needs of the case should be fulfilled. Sir Charles Dilke's collections include many things of the utmost consequence, both to the text of the writings of Keats and to the completeness of illustrative detail. Letters from the poet, books formerly possessed by him, numerous letters from George Keats, Severn, and Brown, and a great mass of related documents, have been placed unreservedly in my hands by Sir Charles Dilke, and figure conspicuously throughout |