Joanna Richardson (1)Reseñas

If you expect a modern biography, you will be disappointed. The title of the book tells you exactly what it is - it is a chronology of the life of Keats, told mainly by letters and poetry, with the author providing the connections where required and summarizing letters which are not included (usually the ones to Keats but some parts of his as well) and with almost no analysis (which is a major requirement for a modern biography - thus my first sentence.

It is a short book - its 165 pages makes you expect an easy read. But they are so full of letters written in the early 19th century and poetry excerpts and complete sonnets (and occasionally other poems) that you end up slowing down (and I ended up looking up the poetry which was mentioned but not cited).

I'd admit that Keats is not one of my favorite poets - I like some of his work but the Romantics had never clicked properly with me. Most of what I knew about his life before this book was what I got from a biographical sketch in a textbook a long time ago and the radio drama "Writ in Water" by Angus Graham-Campbell which dramatized the poet's last months to celebrate the 200th anniversary of his death in 2021 (it is available from the BBC site here: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000sj88).

Early in the book, the letters are mainly about Keats (and his circle), as the book progresses, the only letters which get cited (with a few notable exceptions such as Shelley's letter inviting Keats to Pisa) are the poet's own words. And they don't always paint him in the best light - he is possessive and jealous with the woman who is supposed to become his wife; at the same time he is generous where his brother is concerned. His letters (and the poetry which they often contain) make him look a lot more like a human being and a lot less like the banner poet of the times, dying tragically young and never seeing his own success.

Richardson makes a valiant effort to explain the connection between the different people who show up in the letters - but I found myself rechecking some names when they popped up again in the narrative. If you are aware of the literary circles of the times, that may work a bit better I suspect but even if you are not entirely sure who is who exactly, the letters speak for themselves. Somewhere in there, there are also a lot of details on how a poet of these times was working - from copying poems into clean copies for publishing to scribbling poetry in other books and random pieces of paper. It also makes you wonder how much more poetry did the poets of the era create and is now lost because it was never published and noone bothered to save the pieces.

The volume won't replace a biography of the poet but the letters give you a new appreciation of what we had lost - even the most mundane letters are full of beautiful writing (and the ones to Fanny are especially poetic). It did not make me a big fan of Keats but it showed me a side of his writing which made me look again at poems I had not looked at for decades and which I probably would not have looked at again.

good, easy read

quite good overview. nothing about science as the author admits. a very interesting time period. lots of good photos.

I wanted to like it more than I did. I has wished for a bit more of a primer on the life of the courtesans as well as the brief biographies within the book. Each chapter is independent of others, which allows you,to skim past ones that do not interest you. It was interesting that many clients were the same names in several chapters. I think this might be better as a second book on this topic, after gleaning some. ore background of the era and the 'profession'.

This is a book which tells Lord Byron's story through his and his friends letters. It makes the tale more immediate: taking away the glory of twenty-twenty hindsight.

The book is presented in four sections, dealing with different parts of his life. Through the early part, it is clear that Byron was a sad, but also rather obnoxious young man. He had been born with, what is described as, a slight club foot, but otherwise, had the sort of appearance that had the ladies putty in his hands. From the escapades enumerated in this book, it is obvious that his deformity did not hold him back, but he was always concious of it. One story that particularly illustrates this dichotomy between bullying and fragile, is of him goading his mother about her weight until she snapped and remarked that at least her legs worked properly. Byron was crushed.

Through his youth and into manhood, Byron comes across as an objectionable fellow, who could write poetry of a standard few could hope to attain. His love affairs and friendships always seem to end with Byron hurting someone: it was almost as if he did not trust closeness and had to test it to destruction.

Just as one has cast judgement upon the man, however, he acts in such a way as to tear up the charge sheet and show a character to which, one can only aspire. In his early thirties, he becomes engaged with the Greek struggle for independence from the Otterman Empire. Whereas I, in his position, might have written a few verses in support, perhaps sent a few pounds, Byron heads off to Greece, pays out of his own pocket for troops and actively involves himself in the struggle. Proof that life is not fair, is admirably clear as he picks up a fever and dies at the age of thirty-six.

This book does not give a full biography of the man, but it does puncture those quick, "Mad, bad and dangerous to know" type versions of the poet's life.

2472 Verlaine, by Joanna Richardson (read 11 Nov 1992) This is a 1971 biography of Paul Verlaine (born 30 March 1844 at Metz, died 8 Jan 1896 at Paris). He was a drunk, homosexual, and a poor excuse--but a great poet. This book quotes a lot of his poetry, but it is all in French! If I had been 'doing' the book right I'd have found an English translation of these poems, but I did not. After Verlaine's breakup with Rimbaud he returned to the Church, and died a Catholic death--though his life dripped with sin. I appreciated, in this day when homosexuality is so often condoned or even extolled, this book's very deprecatory attitude to Verlaine's homosexuality. But to read a whole book on a poet I can't read in his language anything he wrote seems not a good use of my time.

This book was written nearly 30 years previous to the Hickman book, and is completely different in style and readability. It focuses on 12 courtesans and the treatment of each is much more concise than in the Hickman book. Oddly, given the title, I did not get much of a feel for the world in which these women existed. It focuses very tightly on their lives, and did not venture far to provide a setting for those lives. It did give an excellent idea of what these women were like, the fire and spark that made them independent in a way few people today can really understand. Read together with the Hickman book, you get an excellent idea of what the time period was like.

Product Description
In Second Empire Paris there were a dozen courtesans who were generally known as la garde: they were the queens of their profession, the women whom visiting princes thought it essential to see. They were the women who encrusted their bathroom taps with jewels, built palaces in the Champs-Elysees, fought duels in the Bois de Boulogne. They scandalised society and influenced the Press and politics. They also ensnared the husbands and lovers of the most beautiful women in Paris. Joanna Richardson presents her own version of la garde - twelve of the most distinguished courtesans in Paris during their golden age. From the calculating Cora Pearl to the hideous la Paiva, who rose from the Moscow ghetto to indecent wealth and fame, and the admirable Madame Sabatier made famous by Baudelaire, to La Castiglione sent by Cavour to seduce Napoleon III, la garde people these pages with all the colour, intrigue, scandal and vivacity with which they peopled the demi-monde of 19th century Paris.