Kindle
$14.69
Available instantly
Hardcover
$36.98
Paperback
$11.48
Buy new:
-56% $11.48
$3.98 delivery September 24 - 27
Ships from: Mesilla Internet
Sold by: Mesilla Internet
$11.48 with 56 percent savings
List Price: $25.95

The List Price is the suggested retail price of a new product as provided by a manufacturer, supplier, or seller. Except for books, Amazon will display a List Price if the product was purchased by customers on Amazon or offered by other retailers at or above the List Price in at least the past 90 days. List prices may not necessarily reflect the product's prevailing market price.
Learn more
$3.98 delivery September 24 - 27. Details
Only 1 left in stock - order soon.
$$11.48 () Includes selected options. Includes initial monthly payment and selected options. Details
Price
Subtotal
$$11.48
Subtotal
Initial payment breakdown
Shipping cost, delivery date, and order total (including tax) shown at checkout.
Ships from
Mesilla Internet
Ships from
Mesilla Internet
Returns
30-day refund/replacement
30-day refund/replacement
This item can be returned in its original condition for a full refund or replacement within 30 days of receipt. You may receive a partial or no refund on used, damaged or materially different returns.
Read full return policy
Returns
30-day refund/replacement
This item can be returned in its original condition for a full refund or replacement within 30 days of receipt. You may receive a partial or no refund on used, damaged or materially different returns.
Read full return policy
Payment
Secure transaction
Your transaction is secure
We work hard to protect your security and privacy. Our payment security system encrypts your information during transmission. We don’t share your credit card details with third-party sellers, and we don’t sell your information to others. Learn more
Payment
Secure transaction
We work hard to protect your security and privacy. Our payment security system encrypts your information during transmission. We don’t share your credit card details with third-party sellers, and we don’t sell your information to others. Learn more
$6.73
Pages can have notes/highlighting. Spine may show signs of wear. ~ ThriftBooks: Read More, Spend Less Pages can have notes/highlighting. Spine may show signs of wear. ~ ThriftBooks: Read More, Spend Less See less
FREE delivery September 12 - 17. Details
Or fastest delivery September 11 - 13. Details
In stock
$$11.48 () Includes selected options. Includes initial monthly payment and selected options. Details
Price
Subtotal
$$11.48
Subtotal
Initial payment breakdown
Shipping cost, delivery date, and order total (including tax) shown at checkout.
Access codes and supplements are not guaranteed with used items.
Ships from
ThriftBooks-Phoenix
Ships from
ThriftBooks-Phoenix
Condition
Used - Good
Condition
Used - Good
Returns
30-day refund/replacement
30-day refund/replacement
This item can be returned in its original condition for a full refund or replacement within 30 days of receipt. You may receive a partial or no refund on used, damaged or materially different returns.
Read full return policy
Returns
30-day refund/replacement
This item can be returned in its original condition for a full refund or replacement within 30 days of receipt. You may receive a partial or no refund on used, damaged or materially different returns.
Read full return policy
Payment
Secure transaction
Your transaction is secure
We work hard to protect your security and privacy. Our payment security system encrypts your information during transmission. We don’t share your credit card details with third-party sellers, and we don’t sell your information to others. Learn more
Payment
Secure transaction
We work hard to protect your security and privacy. Our payment security system encrypts your information during transmission. We don’t share your credit card details with third-party sellers, and we don’t sell your information to others. Learn more
Kindle app logo image

Download the free Kindle app and start reading Kindle books instantly on your smartphone, tablet, or computer - no Kindle device required.

Read instantly on your browser with Kindle for Web.

Using your mobile phone camera - scan the code below and download the Kindle app.

QR code to download the Kindle App

Follow the author

Stanley Plumly
Follow
Something went wrong. Please try your request again later.

Posthumous Keats: A Personal Biography Paperback – Illustrated, November 9, 2009

by Stanley Plumly (Author)
4.4 4.4 out of 5 stars 24 ratings
See all formats and editions
{"desktop_buybox_group_1":[{"displayPrice":"$11.48","priceAmount":11.48,"currencySymbol":"$","integerValue":"11","decimalSeparator":".","fractionalValue":"48","symbolPosition":"left","hasSpace":false,"showFractionalPartIfEmpty":true,"offerListingId":"lMHJRJQjQvpIgehTngf6ypiobRlJB%2BDV%2FlfNpyDsaHaWxHahOxP%2BK3AkDW4Ns5%2BuvLsuETQPXmQoYsh5%2BazrpUql9rlK32cIVXUSixhU8%2BmnrbmIddO5o%2Bv6wPZ1Mo5ACu5%2BnDJzwHLEmiIs%2BF4xixci4Mu%2B%2BdM9xaduXAMQboyzZPyIy2gVPlDa9uXiJnyW","locale":"en-US","buyingOptionType":"NEW","aapiBuyingOptionIndex":0}, {"displayPrice":"$6.73","priceAmount":6.73,"currencySymbol":"$","integerValue":"6","decimalSeparator":".","fractionalValue":"73","symbolPosition":"left","hasSpace":false,"showFractionalPartIfEmpty":true,"offerListingId":"lMHJRJQjQvpIgehTngf6ypiobRlJB%2BDVIxyhvMaKUxEon12WO0UdhvWTBS9rkdbpNg%2B76lJ%2FWYVJAYXEnt8pi5RI71bXcuaodUsi%2F%2FnUKcf2bPipgfmxbaY%2FBY2O44sVmn0zBVMGzf9rJoE2b7QnwSstYD24ddKclRyq4c80WhCB6sFMFQkTDh4FP3Bwubh3","locale":"en-US","buyingOptionType":"USED","aapiBuyingOptionIndex":1}]}

Purchase options and add-ons

A Los Angeles Times Favorite Book and a Washington Post Best of 2008: “A book worthy of Keats―full of feeling and drama and those fleeting moments we call genius.”―Ted Genoways, Washington Post Book World

John Keats’s famous epitaph―”Here lies One Whose Name was writ in Water”―helped cement his reputation as the archetype of the genius cut off before his time. In this close narrative study, Stanley Plumly meditates on the chances for poetic immortality, an idea that finds its purest expression in Keats. Incisive in its observations and beautifully written, Posthumous Keats is an ode to an unsuspecting young poet―a man who, against the odds of his culture and critics, managed to achieve the unthinkable: the elevation of the lyric poem to sublime and tragic status. 7 illustrations
Previous slide of product details
  1. Print length
    396 pages
  2. Language
    English
  3. Publisher
    W. W. Norton & Company
  4. Publication date
    November 9, 2009
  5. Dimensions
    5.5 x 1 x 8.2 inches
  6. ISBN-10
    0393337723
  7. ISBN-13
    978-0393337723
  8. See all details
Next slide of product details
The Amazon Book Review
The Amazon Book Review
Book recommendations, author interviews, editors' picks, and more. Read it now.

Frequently bought together

Posthumous Keats: A Personal Biography
This item: Posthumous Keats: A Personal Biography
$11.48
Get it Sep 24 - 27
Only 1 left in stock - order soon.
Ships from and sold by Mesilla Internet.
+
The Immortal Evening: A Legendary Dinner with Keats, Wordsworth, and Lamb
$13.78
Get it as soon as Tuesday, Sep 10
Only 1 left in stock - order soon.
Ships from and sold by Amazon.com.
Total price:
To see our price, add these items to your cart.
Details
Added to Cart
spCSRF_Treatment
These items are shipped from and sold by different sellers.
Show details Hide details
Choose items to buy together.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"A beautiful book. . . . [W]hen Plumly turns his laser-like gaze on Keats’ letters and his verse, the book is brilliant."
― Nicholas Delbanco, Los Angeles Times

"Mr. Plumly writes beautifully and very movingly."
― Charles McGrath, New York Times

"Plumly has written a book to last: worthy of its subject and commensurate with both words of its title."
― Robert Pinsky, Slate

About the Author

Stanley Plumly (1939–2019) authored eleven books of poetry, including the National Book Award finalist Old Heart, and four books of nonfiction. His honors include the Paterson Poetry Prize and Truman Capote Award for Literary Criticism, among others. Plumly was a Distinguished University Professor at the University of Maryland as well Maryland’s poet laureate from 2009 to 2018.

Product details

  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ W. W. Norton & Company; Illustrated edition (November 9, 2009)
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • Paperback ‏ : ‎ 396 pages
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0393337723
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0393337723
  • Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 1.08 pounds
  • Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 5.5 x 1 x 8.2 inches
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.4 4.4 out of 5 stars 24 ratings

About the author

Follow authors to get new release updates, plus improved recommendations.
Stanley Plumly

Stanley Plumly

Brief content visible, double tap to read full content.
Full content visible, double tap to read brief content.

Discover more of the author’s books, see similar authors, read author blogs and more

Customer reviews

4.4 out of 5 stars
24 global ratings

Top reviews from the United States

Rob Jacques
5.0 out of 5 stars Plumly Brings John Keats Closer to Us
Reviewed in the United States on May 5, 2009
Verified Purchase
It's fitting and satisfying that it's two poets who have brought John Keats and his immediate world to vivid life. Way back in 1925, Amy Lowell gave us the first well-researched biography of Keats that is still a relevant and great read today. And now poet Stanley Plumly has given us a profound, demythologizing study of Keats's last 18 months and the reactions of his family and friends to his death.

Plumly's volume is an obvious work of love. He writes a straightforward history of Keats's last months, and then muses over the details from different perspectives. He turns a forensic as well as a philosophical eye on the motives and actions of Keats's inner circle of friends, spending considerable time ruminating on the characters and principles of Charles Brown, William Haslam, George Keats, and - of course - Joseph Severn. We see Keats's last days not just as they probably were, but as they must have been. And we see John Keats himself: fragile and anguished, full of vigor, innocence, trustworthiness, incredible talent, and deep, abiding love for Fanny Brawne and life itself.

Plumly's most remarkable accomplishment is his interweaving much of Keats's great odes with the young poet's experiences and literary philosophy. That a youth so inexperienced in life, so poor, and so desperately ill could write what many believe to be the greatest series of odes in English is astounding. I remember being blown away by Keats's odes in my high school English class, and now Stanley Plumly has written a book that explains to me why.

Keats's opening lines of his long poem, Endymion, certainly apply to his own work:

"A thing of beauty is a joy for ever:
Its loveliness increases; it will never
Pass into nothingness; but still will keep
A bower quiet for us, and a sleep
Full of sweet dreams, and health, and quiet breathing."
22 people found this helpful
Helpful
 Report
R. M. Scott
5.0 out of 5 stars Rekindle your love of a great Poet!
Reviewed in the United States on August 23, 2008
Verified Purchase
I am an college English major from nearly forty-five years ago, and rarely have looked at Keats' poetry since. Plumly's book elegantly recreated for me the milieu of Keats' last few years, when he lived with the certain knowledge that his life was ebbing because of TB--an illness whose signs and symptoms and course he recognized well from his education as a medical student and his experience with the deaths of his mother and brother from the disease. The biographical details of his travels, companions and caregivers, the inevitable course of his illness and the futile attempts to stem its progression, and concomitant production of his extraordinary poetry were fascinating to me. The book gave me a new appreciation of certain poems -- particularly Ode to Autumn -- and made me want to re-read Keats' poetry -- which I am in the process of doing. Some of the extended quotations from his and contemporaries' letters, as well as some extended literary criticism by Plumly were not my cup of tea -- but all in all, this was a wonderful book. I passed it along to my college roommate, also an English major, knowing he would enjoy it as well. Any reader remembering the beauty of Keats' poems and wanting a illuminating entry into their restudy would enjoy this book very much.
13 people found this helpful
Helpful
 Report
Dr. Emily Kurtz
3.0 out of 5 stars A curious work
Reviewed in the United States on June 12, 2009
Verified Purchase
I read the Ricks' review of this book in the NY Times and ran to get it. Ricks is the best Tennysonian I have ever read and i respect his work a lot. However, I was a bit perplexed at all the hoo-ha. First, you must come to this work very well-versed in your Keats--both his poetry and his life. So if you have not read (about) Keats, this is not the autobiography for you. That said, Plumly is clearly besotted with his subject matter, and that can be good and bad. His imagistic, tender, subjective musings can also be jarring and confusing. His use of the present tense is pretentious, and sometimes he goes way overboard with his own poetic musings on the poet's feelings about death (all conjectural).

And yet, a lot of this book is compelling simply because of the emotion behind it, the sheer investment. However, if you want to know about Keats' youth, his boyhood, you get almost nothing. The lack of sequence can also be annoying--you are forever returned to that ghastly death-chamber. It gets to be too much. Also, Plumly tries to outdo Keats in terms of the sensuality, the fullness, of his figurations--as if he is competing with the poet. A no-win situation.

So I give a divided review here. i am glad I read this book but do not feel as if i gained much knowledge about the poetry or the poet. i did learn a lot about TB and 19th c quackery, however.
18 people found this helpful
Helpful
 Report
Michael Greenebaum
4.0 out of 5 stars A lovely set of meditations
Reviewed in the United States on July 17, 2008
Stanley Plumly finds Keats companionable -- and so do I. Plumly is a distunguished poet, yet his interest here is less in the poetry than in the poet. The story of the poet is sad and heroic, courageous and pitiable, and Plumly touches all these themes with generosity and compassion as well as a hard critical eye. Plumly is also interested in what might be called the myth of Keats - how his story and even his appearance have been burnished and reworked by his friends and the generations that follow. It takes a remarkable youth to have friends like Keats had, and Plumly has earned his place in the Keats Circle.

A few of Plumly's interests here threaten to become obsessive - the need to count the days til Keats's death appears throughout, whereas it would need be a source of profitable speculation only once. That Keats lived in the shadow of death is true enough, but the truth becomes diminished when it is mentioned so often. Still, any lover of Keats will embrace this work and acknowledge that it holds a unique place on the very long shelf of Keatsiana.
24 people found this helpful
Helpful
 Report
Maynard Mack Jr.
5.0 out of 5 stars Poet on poet
Reviewed in the United States on December 1, 2009
Verified Purchase
This is a gorgeous book. It is also heartbreaking. Plumly brings to Keats the generosity of heart and the capaciousness of mind ("negative capability," some might call it) required to enter deeply into the late poetry and the astoundingly painful last year of the poet's life. This book is, I think, guaranteed to make you love Keats more and, just possibly, like doctors less!
6 people found this helpful
Helpful
 Report
R. Bruce
5.0 out of 5 stars Then you'll really enjoy it.
Reviewed in the United States on May 27, 2015
Verified Purchase
Read this one after you've read 2-3 of the more traditional treatments. Then you'll really enjoy it.
One person found this helpful
Helpful
 Report

Top reviews from other countries

CFive
5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent Read
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on December 11, 2008
Verified Purchase
Really excellent read. Approaches Keats and the 'Keats legacy' from a different direction that I found both intriguing and very enjoyable. It seems to me to be the sort of book that you could read several times and each time discover something new, highly recommended.
9 people found this helpful
 Report
M. DOUGLAS
5.0 out of 5 stars excellent
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on July 1, 2016
Verified Purchase
Quick delivery, excellent item
Report
Celia Freije
4.0 out of 5 stars Keats is an amazing Poet.
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on September 4, 2013
Verified Purchase
I am interested, fascinated by Keats the poet, but this book is not an easy read, and I have not had time to read beyond the incredibly graphic and sad telling of Keats death.
Report