Lives of the Great Romantics, Part II: Keats, Coleridge and Scott by their Contemporaries

In this second collection of biographical accounts of Romantic writers, the characters of Keats, Coleridge and Scott are recalled by their contemporaries, offering insights into their lives and writings, as well as into the art of 19th-century biography. Keats died at the age of 25. Memoir writers attempted to capture the tragedy of what they saw as thwarted promise. The memoirs in this collection explore the Romantic cult of the poet, sharing Keats's own reluctance to turn his private life into public art. Coleridge, a famous theologian and drug-user, was seen by his contemporaries both as a degenerate and as "the sage of Highgate", a defender of the Established Church. The reminiscences collected here struggle to present a clear, coherent image of their subject, whether heroic or disreputable. More recent reappraisals of Sir Walter Scott's work accompany a revived curiousity about his private personality and public persona. Memoirs selected here include material from a biography written by his son-in-law J.G. Lockhart, as well as from the many dissident and more informal recollections of his varied literary acquaintances.