Gothic Keats Press

13/12/2024

16/08/2024

Today, 202 years ago, on a ‘magnificent extent’ of sea-shore near Viareggio, Italy, the funeral of Percy Bysshe Shelley occurred in spectacularly pagan fashion, complete with funeral pyre and offerings of spice, wine and frankincense. For a detailed account, including differing accounts by those who were there (and even those who weren’t there), read ‘Gothicized, Glamourized, Mythologized: The Funeral of Percy Bysshe Shelley’, an essay by Clay Franklin Johnson.

On 16 August 1822, two hundred years ago today, the funeral of Percy Bysshe Shelley was held upon “a magnificent extent” of sea-shore on the “blue and windless Mediterranean” near Viareggio, Italy.

10/08/2024

Clay Franklin Johnson is a writer, amateur pianist, devoted animal lover, and incorrigible reader of Gothic literature and Romantic poetry. Clay is the author of A Ride Through Faerie & Other P…

09/08/2024

‘He is with the Poets!’

It is with great sadness that we learnt of the death of Clive Jones, who through his volunteer tours and poetry readings was for many people their first and lasting impression of Keats House.

He will always be remembered for his generosity and passion for Keats and is greatly missed by everyone who knew him.

04/08/2024

Today is Percy Bysshe Shelley’s birthday, one of the most brilliantly original poets of the Romantic age. Here is our collection of essays, ‘I am borne darkly, fearfully, afar’: Essays in Honour of Percy Bysshe Shelley on the Bicentenary of His Death (2022), which includes pieces by Professor Michael Owen Jones, Professor Nahoko Miyamoto Alvey, Dr Amanda Blake Davis, Clay Franklin Johnson, Lynn Shepherd, Colin Silver, Graham Henderson, Marty Ambrose, and the Shelley Memorial Project.

A collection of essays that commemorate the bicentenary of Percy Bysshe Shelley’s death. He died 8th July 1822, two hundred years ago today.

16/07/2024

Two hundred years ago today, 16 July 1824, the one and only Lord Byron was buried in Hucknall, Nottinghamshire. We are remembering him today by publishing a collection of poetry in his honour.

We are very proud of the collection, which we titled ‘mad, bad and dangerous to know’: Poems in Honour of Lord Byron for the Bicentenary Year of his Death. You can read these wonderfully Byronic poems here:

https://www.gothickeatspress.com/poems-to-honour-the-200th-anniversary-of-lord-byrons-death

10/03/2024

*POETRY SUBMISSIONS ARE NOW OPEN*

We are excited to announce that we will be publishing a collection of contemporary poetry this summer in honour of Lord Byron to commemorate the 200th anniversary of his death. The deadline for poems is 1 June 2024.

See link below for submission details.

We are excited to announce a collection of contemporary poetry in honour of Lord Byron to commemorate the bicentenary of his death on 19 April 1824.

23/10/2023

Here is ‘“Full Fathom Five the Poet Lies”: The Death of Percy Bysshe Shelley’ by Lynn Shepherd.

The Romantic poet Percy Bysshe Shelley died on 8th July 1822, at the age of 29, when his boat went down in a sudden storm off the coast of the Gulf of Spezia. A dreadful death, dreadfully young, but was it really just a tragic accident, or something far darker and more disturbing?

05/10/2023

Today is National Poetry Day and we are happy to offer free shipping anywhere in the world for our first published book, A Ride Through Faerie & Other Poems by Clay Franklin Johnson with illustrations by Eli John. Lovers of poetry with a fondness for the Romantics, especially Keats and Shelley who inspired much of the poems within this collection, will find this book a pleasure. Please do share.

https://www.gothickeatspress.com/bookstore/p/a-ride-through-faerie

28/09/2023

An incredible find by Professor Andrew Stauffer! According to the exhibition, this portrait could be ‘the most accurate image of the poet Percy Bysshe Shelley in existence.’ You can see this painting in ‘Portrait of a Poet—Revisited: William Edward West’s Percy Bysshe Shelley’ through the 5th of November at the University of Virginia.

https://www.library.virginia.edu/news/2023/will-real-percy-shelley-please-stand/

19/09/2023

Today we celebrate the beginning of the ‘Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness’. Keats wrote these now immortal words on 19 September 1819, 204 years ago today, while on a walk along the River Itchen near Wi******er. ‘To Autumn’ was the last of Keats’s great odes and his last major poem before his tragic death in 1821.

10/09/2023

‘Thinking of death makes us tenderly cling to our affections; with more than usual tenderness I therefore assure you that I am yours, wishing that the temporary death of absence may not endure longer than is absolutely necessary.’

— Mary Wollstonecraft, died on this day 10 September 1797, just eleven days after giving birth to Mary Shelley.

04/09/2023

Here is ‘Searching for Claire Clairmont’ by Marty Ambrose.

“Searching for Claire Clairmont”, an essay by Marty Ambrose.

04/09/2023

Lovers of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein will find this ‘Frankenstein Story Map’ both inspiring and informative. It identifies and illustrates locations with maps, paintings, and quotes from Shelley’s novel. The story map was created by Caitlin Burke and Patricia Herron with the University of Maryland.

https://uofmd.maps.arcgis.com/apps/MapJournal/index.html?appid=85b227b2ee964cb9b6279ed0dc3411ac

24/08/2023

Dr John William Polidori, one of our beloved writers, tragically took his own life on this day 24 August 1821. He was two weeks shy of his 26th birthday. Polidori’s ‘The Vampyre’ was first published on 1 April 1819 (April Fool’s Day) in the New Monthly Magazine and falsely attributed to Lord Byron. Although ‘The Vampyre’ is indeed Polidori’s story, he was inspired by Byron’s own unfinished vampire story ‘Fragment of a Novel’, and modelled his aristocratic vampire, Lord Ruthven, on Byron himself. According to Polidori, ‘The Vampyre’ was written in ‘two or three idle mornings’ at Villa Diodati during the Year Without a Summer of 1816, the same ‘haunted summer’ that gave birth to Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. Polidori’s seductive, romantic vampire changed vampire literature forever.

16/08/2023

On 16 August 1822 the funeral of our dear Percy Bysshe Shelley was held upon ‘a magnificent extent’ of sea-shore on the ‘blue and windless Mediterranean’ near Viareggio, Italy. For an account of this heavily romanticised classically pagan ceremony, read ‘Gothicized, Glamourized, Mythologized: The Funeral of Percy Bysshe Shelley’ by Clay Franklin Johnson. It was first published last year on the 200th anniversary of Shelley’s funeral.

On 16 August 1822, two hundred years ago today, the funeral of Percy Bysshe Shelley was held upon “a magnificent extent” of sea-shore on the “blue and windless Mediterranean” near Viareggio, Italy.

04/08/2023

We just wanted to commemorate the 231st birthday of our dear Percy Bysshe Shelley. We honoured the 200th anniversary of his tragic death last year with a collection of essays (we’ve been posting them again one by one this month), and we have plans to honour Percy in the years to come with more essays, poems, and even illustrated books. Cheers, Percy!