The Phoenix and the Turtle [by Shakespeare], and twenty-six years later, for a New Statesman competition in 1960, Brasch has captured a different ‘essence’ of Keats’ ‘Ode on a Grecian Urn’ with a summary of it in ten words: ‘Lovers / On jug / Never / Can hug. / – Men not, / Pots not.’ This copy was bought by Brasch in London in 1934.
(Chosen by Alan Roddick, Poet and Charles Brasch's literary executor)]]>
John Keats]]> Books]]>
Lamia, is one of five given to Special Collections by former University Librarian, friend and bibliographer of Robert Gibbings, John Harris. Harris was born in Oamaru, graduated from Oxford University in 1929 and was the University Librarian at Otago from 1935 until 1948. Gibbings gave the sheets to Harris when he visited Dunedin in 1947. It is not clear how Harris and Gibbings came to be friends; perhaps they became acquainted when Harris was at Oxford. In any case, Harris left Otago in 1948 for Africa, where he taught library studies in Ghana. He later became known as the ‘Father of West African Librarianship’. Page 18 (above) is part of the poem, Lamia, while page 31 features lines from the poem Isabella, or The Pot of Basil.]]> John Keats]]> Printed sheets]]> The Eve of St. Agnes (1819) is one of Keats’s finest and chronicles the tale of the medieval maiden Madeline who retires to bed semi-naked to dream of her forbidden love, Porphyro.]]> John Keats]]> Books]]> Rubáiyát. Commissioned by an American and taking two years to complete, the volume was heavily bejewelled and gilded and on completion it was sent to America on the Titanic. It has never been recovered. Sadly Sangorski drowned not long after the Titanic tragedy, and Sutcliffe carried on the business. After a stroke in 1936, his nephew Stanley Bray (1907-1995) took over. This volume of Keats’ Endymion was bound by S&S under Bray’s aegis in 1947. It is quarter-bound in white vellum with maroon coloured buckram on the covers; the spine title is in gold with gilt crescent moon and star, and cockerel motifs; the front cover is adorned with an imprint of Diana/Cynthia, as goddess of the moon, with a crescent moon in her hair and stars and planets surrounding her.]]> John Keats]]> Rubáiyát. Commissioned by an American and taking two years to complete, the volume was heavily bejewelled and gilded and on completion it was sent to America on the Titanic. It has never been recovered. Sadly Sangorski drowned not long after the Titanic tragedy, and Sutcliffe carried on the business. After a stroke in 1936, his nephew Stanley Bray (1907-1995) took over. This volume of Keats’ Endymion was bound by S&S under Bray’s aegis in 1947. It is quarter-bound in white vellum with maroon coloured buckram on the covers; the spine title is in gold with gilt crescent moon and star, and cockerel motifs; the front cover is adorned with an imprint of Diana/Cynthia, as goddess of the moon, with a crescent moon in her hair and stars and planets surrounding her.]]> John Keats]]>