by Ennis » Wed Jan 09, 2013 2:30 am
Cath and all,
I e-mailed The House in Hampstead and asked if they, or the City of London, were going to post a bid. Hopefully they will, and hopefully they will be successful, as they were with Keats's letter to Fanny last March. As far as I'm concerned, that fragment shouldn't be auctioned but donated to The House - where it belongs; however, I suppose it's always about money. Heck, I'm all for Harvard donating its Keats's hoard to Hampstead as well. I know ALowell and FHolland-Day (and others, I'm sure) donated their collections to Harvard, but it doesn't seem right (to me) that all things Keatsian aren't in Hampstead where they belong!! It's ironic that Harvard has a larger Keats stash than London/Hampstead; it's almost blasphemous, in a way. Sure, Cambridge, Mass. is much closer to me than London, but when I see Keats stuff I'd prefer it to be where he would want it.
And shame on CCClarke and CABrown for cutting up the manuscripts they did and divvying them out as souvenirs! I can half understand why they did, but a big part of me believes that the act confirms little faith in Keats's after-fame. You would think the members of the Keats Circle would want to keep the original manuscripts of their "pet lamb (in a sentimental farce)" whole, together, and safe. Perhaps Dick Woodhouse was the only fore-sighted one of the bunch. I'm not too sure Keats would appreciate his manuscripts cut up and handed out as souvenirs; he certainly mentioned nothing about it in his pitiful will - just his books, and in perfect iambic pentameter (ever the poet!): "My chest of book divide among my friends." No mention of "cut up my manuscripts and hand them out to anyone who asks."
Last edited by
Ennis on Thu Jan 17, 2013 7:12 pm, edited 1 time in total.
"But if you will fully love me, though there may be some fire, 'twill not be more than we can bear when moistened and bedewed with Pleasures." JK to FB 08.07.1819