John Keats by Nicholas Roe – review

The joke has been made by Jack Stillinger, an American editor of Keats, that there have been so many treatments of the poet’s life that we know him better than his contemporaries did, and better than most people we see every day. This brilliant new biography by eminent Keatsian Nicholas Roe has caused controversy with the claim that Keats was an opium addict. The book’s blurb is certainly angled to capitalise on this, and states that it will ‘[explode] entrenched conceptions of [Keats] as a delicate, overly sensitive, tragic figure.’ But surely, one would think, Keats being a drug addict on top of the tuberculosis and early death should enlarge his tragic currency?

Luckily, Roe’s biography is much less sensationalist than the publicity makes out. He gives us a sensitive, thorough and broad reading of Keats. The London childhood and school years are brought to life more completely than they have been in the past, as is his friendship with the charismatic polymath critic/ poet Leigh Hunt ( – Roe has written a biography of him, too).