In a year that saw a lot of books published about Keats and his poetry, Suzie Grogan's JOHN KEATS is a bit of an outlier. Rather than a traditional biography or piece of literary criticism, her book is part memoir. In this charming work, she follows in Keat's footsteps quite literarlly: she travels through the landscapes and environments were Keats lived--making comparisons between his day and our own. She also points out links between his landscape and the words he writes. An interesting book, but less connected to Keats scholarship than I was hoping.

I really enjoyed this book. Knowing a little about Keats, I found the way the book is written and laid out really helpful. It felt like walking through Keats’ life in the company of a knowledgable friend who wears their learning lightly. This is not a biography of the “he was born, this happened, he died” type and Ms Grogan is clear about that. She mentions several times the biography by Andrew Motion and quotes from it. This book is episodes from the poet’s life tied to the places where he lived or journeyed.

I had no idea that Keats was such a small man nor that he had died so young. I saw him as a tragic figure in the romantic poet genre and didn't connect the work so closely with the man. Now when I reread his poetry, I will have images in my head of the man he was, the sadness and joy in his life and the places he saw that I too can or have visit/ed.

A beautiful book full of insight and information and much as I would love to follow in Keats’ footsteps like the author, I think walking hundreds of miles from northern England through the length of Scotland would be better done in my armchair with a book in my hand. I will reread this book after I’ve gone through some of Keats poetry.

I was given a copy of this book by Netgalley in return for an honest review.

I wrote my senior thesis on Keats, so was prepared to judge this book harshly. But it's beautiful. Well-written, well-researched - an absolute treat to read.

I finished reading "John Keats, Poetry, Life and Landscapes:, by Suzie Grogan last night. I like reading books where I learn new things and this was no exception. I knew very little of John Keats other than his poetry of course which we learned in school. I knew nothing of the man himself or of his life in general. In this, the book did not disappoint and I learned quite a bit.
Although the book was filled with knowledge of Keats and his life, I found that it was not an easy read. To me it was very wordy and filled with obscure details which were written in a style that made it hard to get the flow of the book moving. Maybe it was just me, but I did find it rather difficult to keep my attention focused at times.
The book is well researched and full of historical detail which I find interesting and informative. It tells of the places Keats had lived and of his training to be a doctor which I didn't know of. It tells how he has influenced history and politics over time, these facts not usually being associated with him before. All of this I found very interesting and I am glad I did not give up reading this book though at times I almost did.
I feel that it was worth the time and the bit of a struggle it took me to get through for the sheer fact of the knowledge and insight into his life and influence I gained. It portrayed a much broader picture of John Keats than just that of poet that you learn of in school. I would recommend this book to anyone looking to gain insight and knowledge of the man behind the poetry.
I would give this book a 3 out of 5 stars, only because I found the style in which it was written difficult.
I would like to thank @NetGalley and the publishers at @PenandSwordHistory for the advanced reader copy of this book in exchange for my honest review.
#NetGalley
#JohnKeats

I will never get to England. I had dreamed of it when I was in my twenties and thirties. I wanted to see the places that inspired the literature I loved. Now, I am content to remain an armchair traveler.

Suzie Grogan's biography John Keats is a real treat, a wonderful way to meet John Keats and learn about his life and work and travels. Grogan discovered Keats as a teenager, memorizing his poetry and studying his life. She makes readers love Keats, too.

I will admit that I had a limited knowledge of the Romantic writers, a deficit I have tried to make up for in my mature years. I had come across Keats while reading about other Romantic era writers. It was time to become more familiar with his poet.

Keats studied to be a doctor but decided to dedicate his life to poetry. As a teenager, Keats had nursed his mother who was dying from TB. And he had taken care of his brother who also died of TB. As a physician, he knew he had tuberculosis, and it drove him to give up the woman he loved. Keats himself tragically died of TB at age 25.

Before his death, he managed a strenuous walking tour, although troubled by a sore throat. Grogan follows Keats' walking journey across north England and Scotland, describing what Keats would have seen and the modern view of the same scenes. The tour helped to inspire some of his best poetry.

Illustrations enrich the book: Keat's beautiful, refined face, the houses and cottages where he lived or visited, the cathedrals and the streets he knew, statues and art portraying him.

Grogan includes the iconic poems she discusses in the volume, and reading them was an important part of my appreciation.

I received a free egalley from the publisher through NetGalley in exchange for a fair and unbiased review.

Suzie Grogan lives with a book of Keats’ poetry in her pocket. She is a devotee. The pages brim with her own cherished sense of Keatsian Joy.

In her jolly enthused book she walks in the footsteps of Keats, quite literally translating the landscapes before her as he might have seen them. Given the 200 years past, this can be quite a challenge; numerous inns have turned into Costa coffees, and the endless ear-grating pitch of automobile traffic doubtless annihilates the lost call of the nightingale. Nevertheless, Grogan inspires with her reflections upon the poet, scattering Keats’ light deep into the 21st century.

There are canonical biographies and numerous critical works written about Keats. Grogan is not professing a work of scholarship to add to the canon, she is talking to her fellow Keats’ devotees personally and confessing her own emotional journey. This is a deeply relatable heartfelt testament. It is not overwrought sentimentality, but an expression of intimate care for the fate of a poet (or any author) and how that can work wonders in our own lives. In this sense, Grogan fulfills Keats’ own wish that poetry fill the Vale of its readers Souls.

Divided into travelogues, each section covers a journey undertaken by Keats in his short life. The wonders of Scotland, the wet of Devon, the isolation of the Isle of White, the home of Hampstead, and the setting sail to Rome, each well-known passage of Keats’ life is carefully interweaved with Grogan’s own selection of letters and poetry, highlighting how Keats may have felt, but equally as important, how he might have viewed the social context about him in each location. Indeed, it is perhaps as an interpreted historic vista of late Georgian society that the book most impresses.

For the Keats obsessive and the new reader alike, there’s ample poetry here to surprise us as well as to comfort us. From the saucy ballads of a Devon maid to the terrors of old Meg upon the Highland Moors, more subversive wit and vitality to Keats meet with the eye than with the popular record. He reminds us to live. Poetry is not a specialist subject for the bookworm; it is synonymous with a call to adventure.

John Keats is one of my favourite poets so imagine how happy I was to see this gorgeous book available to read! It is the most outstanding and comprehensive yet accessible work I've read on Keats, what influenced him and prompted him to write and his life and events around him. It's akin to finding all the information on him as a writer and as a person and combining them to create this treasure chest of a book. Not only that but oh, what lovely photographs, drawings and illustrations! Many are new to me.

What if Keats hadn't died of tuberculosis at the tender age of 25? What he could have accomplished! Though I'm grateful for what he DID write and document. How lucky we are to have his poetry and letters. Though I've been to several Keats-related sites, to walk where he walked and to see what he saw through his eyes, as the author did, must have been pure magic. If writers knew their profound effects on people years after they are gone...

Grogan writes about his physical looks (of which he was self conscious) and mannerisms and personality, too. I would like to listen to him read his own poetry with his inflections and emphases. I had not seen his life mask before! Very interesting. The information about his almost-medical career was fascinating. Keats' relationship with Fanny, other writers (such as Wordsworth) and his friends are well documented here with as much information as is available. My favourite is the devotion of Joseph Severn during Keats' terrible illness and death. Descriptions of his beloved landscapes such as Stock Ghyll Force, capture and enchant me. That's "my" Keats.

That was Section 1 in the book; Section 2 is extremely useful as the author advises in the beginning; it introduces us those around Keats. This is followed by a chronological list of important dates in Keats' life and the spectacular ending...almost a denoument...which highlights some of Keats' indescribable poetry. The author's emotional connection to Keats is lovely to follow. So, if you are a fan of Keats or wish to learn more about him, this is your best opportunity!

My sincere thank you to Pen & Sword and NetGalley for providing me with an ARC of this lovely, lovely book in exchange for an honest review. Much appreciated.