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KEATS, John (1795-1821). Autograph manuscript of the poem "To Hope" ("When by my solitary hearth I sit"), comprising 8 six-line stanzas, neatly titled at the head of the sheet, a fair copy, but with two revisions by the author in stanza 2, line 3 ("careless" to "reckless") and stanza 6 line 3 ("our" to "her"), and exhibiting several differences from the text as first printed in Poems, 1817, dated at end, "Feb. 1815." With an unrelated couplet in Keats's hand inscribed horizontally in the lower portion of page 2. Composed in London, February 1815.
2 pages, 4to (239 x 179mm.), written on the recto and verso of a single sheet, without watermark, neatly tipped into a mat, lower portion of page 2 with two unrelated lines of verse (evidently from an early English source) inscribed horizontally in Keat's hand ("They weren fully glad of their gude hap and lasten all the Pleas [indistinct] of joy"). (Small pinhole affecting one letter, tiny marginal repair to top edge, paper flaw causing small hole and clean tear in lower margin, not affecting text); blue cloth protective case. Provenance: Maurice Buxton-Forman (1842-1917), editor of the letters and literary works of Shelley and Keats (bookplate in case), not in his sales, Anderson Galleries, 1920 -- Mrs. Madeleine Buxton Holmes (by descent), sold Sotheby's, London, 27 June 1972, lot 383 -- purchased from John F. Fleming, New York, 25 October 1972.
"TO HOPE": THE LAST COMPLETE AUTOGRAPH POEM OF JOHN KEATS STILL IN PRIVATE HANDS: THE ONLY KNOWN MANUSCRIPT SOURCE FOR THIS VERY EARLY POEM
Other than fragments (several of the poet's longer manuscripts were cut into slips and single pages by Richard Cowwden Clarke and distributed among admirers after his death), the Forman--Berland manuscript of "To Hope" constitutes THE ONLY COMPLETE AUTOGRAPH POEM OF KEATS NOT HELD BY A MAJOR INSTITUTIONAL COLLECTION in the U.S. or Great Britain, out of a total of nearly 200 Keats autograph manuscripts and fragments recorded today. Since 1972, when the present manuscripts was last offered, only a two-line scrap from "Otho the Great" (in 1982) and a fragment from "I stood tip-toe on a little hill," have appeared for sale (Sotheby's, New York, 7 December 1994, lot 175, $29,900). Of the 54 poems published in the poet's lifetime, 31, including "To Hope," made their first appearance in the Poems of 1817. Of these, only 17 are represented today by one or more extant autograph manuscripts. None of these with the exception of "To Hope" are privately owned, so that it is fair to state that, other than fragments, the sale of this manuscript may represent the very last opportunity for a collector to acquire a poetical manuscript of this supreme poet, "one whose name was writ in water."
The poem is a relatively early effort, written during a turbulent period just after the death of Keats's grandmother (in December 1814) had left the young poet and his siblings without near relations and under the supervision of a guardian. Since 1810 Keats had been apprenticed to an apothecary, but he had broken off this study in the autumn of 1814 to pursue his literary aspirations. He had written his first poem in October 1813, not long after his 18th birthday, and, later that year, had been introduced by his friend Cowden Clarke to the works of Edmund Spenser, whose poetry was to prove a profound influence upon his work. During this period the poet experienced episodes of severe morbid despondence and depression, which are vividly expressed in the poem, where he pleads with Hope to protect him from "disappointment, parent of Despair," to cheer him when he fears for "the fate of those I hold most dear," and asks that, "should e'er unhappy love my bosom pain," he will not think it vain "To sigh out sonnets to the midnight air!" In the succeeding stanzas, though, his vista broadens and he expresses fears for his nation (perhaps suggested by Napoleon Bonaparte's escape from Elba, in late February) and for liberty itself, alluding forcefully to "the base purple of a court oppressed." "To Hope" owes a considerable artistic debt to Thomas Campbell's well-known "The Pleasures of Hope," and at this early date most of Keat's poetry was derivative to some degree, strongly colored by the styles and expression of the poets whose work he was assiduously studying. "To Hope" is thought to be contemporary with the "Sonnet written on the day that Mr. Leigh Hunt left prison" (the event itself took place on 2 February), and with "Woman, when I behold thee, flippant, vain," and his posthumous sonnets to Lord Byron and Thomas Chatterton (all published in the 1817 collection). Only a few months later, though, Keats's energetic experimentation would culminate in the famous sonnet "On first looking into Chapman's Homer."
Stanzas 1, 5 and 8 are as follows:
"When by my solitary hearth I sit,
And hateful thoughts enwrap my soul in gloom;
When no fair dreams before my 'mind's eye' flit,
And the bare heath of life presents no bloom;
Sweet Hope, ethereal balm upon me shed,
And wave thy silver pinions o'er my head...
Should e'er unhappy love my bosom pain,
From cruel parents or relentless fair;
O let me think it is not quite in vain
To sigh out sonnets to the midnight air!
Sweet Hope, ethereal balm upon me shed,
And wave thy silver pinions o'er my head!...
And as, in sparkling majesty, a star
Gilds the bright summit of some gloomy cloud;
Brightening the half veil'd face of heaven afar:
So, when dark thoughts my boding spirit shroud,
Sweet Hope, celestial influence round me shed,
Waving thy silver pinions o'er my head."
The manuscript has a distinguished provenance: the first recorded owner, Henry Buxton Forman, was a friend of D.G. Rossetti's and an amateur scholar of distinction, who edited Shelley's poetry (1876) and prose (1880); in 1878 his uncensored edition of Keats' extravagantly emotional letters to Fanny Brawne caused a sensation in Victorian literary circles. Forman went on to edit the first collected works of Keats (1883), a number of works by Elizabeth Barrett and Robert Browning and Robert Morris, and prepared English translations of the libretti of Richard Wagner's major operas.
B. Rosenbaum, ed. Index of English Literary Manuscripts, Vol.IV, part 2, p.395 (Kej 488); M.A.E. Steele, 'Three Early Manuscripts of John Keats," Keats-Shelley Journal 1 (1952), Plate V; J. Stillinger,ed. Poems of John Keats, pp.33-34. Exhibited: Grolier Club, 'This powerfull rime,' 1975, no. 54.
2 pages, 4to (239 x 179mm.), written on the recto and verso of a single sheet, without watermark, neatly tipped into a mat, lower portion of page 2 with two unrelated lines of verse (evidently from an early English source) inscribed horizontally in Keat's hand ("They weren fully glad of their gude hap and lasten all the Pleas [indistinct] of joy"). (Small pinhole affecting one letter, tiny marginal repair to top edge, paper flaw causing small hole and clean tear in lower margin, not affecting text); blue cloth protective case. Provenance: Maurice Buxton-Forman (1842-1917), editor of the letters and literary works of Shelley and Keats (bookplate in case), not in his sales, Anderson Galleries, 1920 -- Mrs. Madeleine Buxton Holmes (by descent), sold Sotheby's, London, 27 June 1972, lot 383 -- purchased from John F. Fleming, New York, 25 October 1972.
"TO HOPE": THE LAST COMPLETE AUTOGRAPH POEM OF JOHN KEATS STILL IN PRIVATE HANDS: THE ONLY KNOWN MANUSCRIPT SOURCE FOR THIS VERY EARLY POEM
Other than fragments (several of the poet's longer manuscripts were cut into slips and single pages by Richard Cowwden Clarke and distributed among admirers after his death), the Forman--Berland manuscript of "To Hope" constitutes THE ONLY COMPLETE AUTOGRAPH POEM OF KEATS NOT HELD BY A MAJOR INSTITUTIONAL COLLECTION in the U.S. or Great Britain, out of a total of nearly 200 Keats autograph manuscripts and fragments recorded today. Since 1972, when the present manuscripts was last offered, only a two-line scrap from "Otho the Great" (in 1982) and a fragment from "I stood tip-toe on a little hill," have appeared for sale (Sotheby's, New York, 7 December 1994, lot 175, $29,900). Of the 54 poems published in the poet's lifetime, 31, including "To Hope," made their first appearance in the Poems of 1817. Of these, only 17 are represented today by one or more extant autograph manuscripts. None of these with the exception of "To Hope" are privately owned, so that it is fair to state that, other than fragments, the sale of this manuscript may represent the very last opportunity for a collector to acquire a poetical manuscript of this supreme poet, "one whose name was writ in water."
The poem is a relatively early effort, written during a turbulent period just after the death of Keats's grandmother (in December 1814) had left the young poet and his siblings without near relations and under the supervision of a guardian. Since 1810 Keats had been apprenticed to an apothecary, but he had broken off this study in the autumn of 1814 to pursue his literary aspirations. He had written his first poem in October 1813, not long after his 18th birthday, and, later that year, had been introduced by his friend Cowden Clarke to the works of Edmund Spenser, whose poetry was to prove a profound influence upon his work. During this period the poet experienced episodes of severe morbid despondence and depression, which are vividly expressed in the poem, where he pleads with Hope to protect him from "disappointment, parent of Despair," to cheer him when he fears for "the fate of those I hold most dear," and asks that, "should e'er unhappy love my bosom pain," he will not think it vain "To sigh out sonnets to the midnight air!" In the succeeding stanzas, though, his vista broadens and he expresses fears for his nation (perhaps suggested by Napoleon Bonaparte's escape from Elba, in late February) and for liberty itself, alluding forcefully to "the base purple of a court oppressed." "To Hope" owes a considerable artistic debt to Thomas Campbell's well-known "The Pleasures of Hope," and at this early date most of Keat's poetry was derivative to some degree, strongly colored by the styles and expression of the poets whose work he was assiduously studying. "To Hope" is thought to be contemporary with the "Sonnet written on the day that Mr. Leigh Hunt left prison" (the event itself took place on 2 February), and with "Woman, when I behold thee, flippant, vain," and his posthumous sonnets to Lord Byron and Thomas Chatterton (all published in the 1817 collection). Only a few months later, though, Keats's energetic experimentation would culminate in the famous sonnet "On first looking into Chapman's Homer."
Stanzas 1, 5 and 8 are as follows:
"When by my solitary hearth I sit,
And hateful thoughts enwrap my soul in gloom;
When no fair dreams before my 'mind's eye' flit,
And the bare heath of life presents no bloom;
Sweet Hope, ethereal balm upon me shed,
And wave thy silver pinions o'er my head...
Should e'er unhappy love my bosom pain,
From cruel parents or relentless fair;
O let me think it is not quite in vain
To sigh out sonnets to the midnight air!
Sweet Hope, ethereal balm upon me shed,
And wave thy silver pinions o'er my head!...
And as, in sparkling majesty, a star
Gilds the bright summit of some gloomy cloud;
Brightening the half veil'd face of heaven afar:
So, when dark thoughts my boding spirit shroud,
Sweet Hope, celestial influence round me shed,
Waving thy silver pinions o'er my head."
The manuscript has a distinguished provenance: the first recorded owner, Henry Buxton Forman, was a friend of D.G. Rossetti's and an amateur scholar of distinction, who edited Shelley's poetry (1876) and prose (1880); in 1878 his uncensored edition of Keats' extravagantly emotional letters to Fanny Brawne caused a sensation in Victorian literary circles. Forman went on to edit the first collected works of Keats (1883), a number of works by Elizabeth Barrett and Robert Browning and Robert Morris, and prepared English translations of the libretti of Richard Wagner's major operas.
B. Rosenbaum, ed. Index of English Literary Manuscripts, Vol.IV, part 2, p.395 (Kej 488); M.A.E. Steele, 'Three Early Manuscripts of John Keats," Keats-Shelley Journal 1 (1952), Plate V; J. Stillinger,ed. Poems of John Keats, pp.33-34. Exhibited: Grolier Club, 'This powerfull rime,' 1975, no. 54.