ABSTRACT
This is the first modern scholarly edition of the letters and memoirs of Joseph Severn, English painter and deathbed companion of John Keats. It includes letters from a remarkable collection of never-before-published correspondence held by descendants of the Severn family. Scott's unprecedented access to hundreds of new letters has resulted in a major revisionist work that challenges traditional ideas about Severn's life and character. The edition includes new information about Severn's early artistic success in Italy, an extraordinarily thorough record of his day-to-day activities as a working artist in England, and surprising details about his experience as British Consul in Rome. The volume represents a significant work of recovery, printing in full three important memoirs that have until now appeared only in inaccurate excerpts and offering thirty-three illustrations that demonstrate the range of Severn's talents as a painter. Scott makes a compelling case for a revaluation of Severn, whose friends also included Charles Eastlake, William Gladstone, Leigh Hunt, John Ruskin, and Mary Shelley. This collection will prove valuable not only to literary biographers and Keats scholars, but also to art and cultural historians of the Romantic and Victorian eras. Adding significantly to the volume's usefulness are a detailed chronology of Severn's life and artwork, and appendices containing an index of the newly discovered letters and a ledger of Severn's patrons, paintings and commissions.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
part |470 pages
Selected Letters 1820–1879
part |28 pages
1820
part |65 pages
1821
part |40 pages
1822
part |24 pages
1823
part |16 pages
1824
part |13 pages
1825
part |8 pages
1827
part |9 pages
1828
part |6 pages
1829
part |18 pages
1830
part |19 pages
1833
part |3 pages
1834
part |5 pages
1836
part |9 pages
1837
part |31 pages
1838
part |7 pages
1839
part |12 pages
1840
part |14 pages
1841
part |10 pages
1842
part |6 pages
1843
part |4 pages
1844
part |7 pages
1845
part |2 pages
1846
part |4 pages
1850
part |4 pages
1851
part |12 pages
1853
part |4 pages
1855
part |5 pages
1856
part |6 pages
1857
part |3 pages
1859
part |9 pages
1860
part |7 pages
1861
part |8 pages
1862
part |9 pages
1863
part |9 pages
1864
part |3 pages
1865
part |3 pages
1866
part |3 pages
1868
part |2 pages
1869
part |12 pages
1870
part |5 pages
1871
part |5 pages
1873
part |6 pages
1875
part |2 pages
1876
part |8 pages
1877
part |4 pages
1878
part |4 pages
1879
part |104 pages
Selected memoirs
part |30 pages
From “Incidents of my life” (1857–1858)