[Keats, John]

63 issues, folio (14 3/4 x 10 1/4 in.; 375 x 260 mm) and 4to (10 1/2 x 7 1/2 in.; 267 x 190 mm). Some scattered spotting and staining.  Bound in a single volume, 19th-century half calf, red morocco lettering-piece, marbled boards; spine chipped at edges, joints cracked, rubbed.   

As described in catalogue entry.
In response to your inquiry, we are pleased to provide you with a general report of the condition of the property described above. Since we are not professional conservators or restorers, we urge you to consult with a restorer or conservator of your choice who will be better able to provide a detailed, professional report. Prospective buyers should inspect each lot to satisfy themselves as to condition and must understand that any statement made by Sotheby's is merely a subjective qualified opinion.
NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING CONDITION OF A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD "AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF SALE PRINTED IN THE CATALOGUE.

A consecutive run of 63 issues of The Champion, covering the period when the format changed from folio to quarto, and including the first printing of a poem by Keats ("On the Sea") and three drama reviews by him, comprising the only prose he published in his lifetime.

Keats's theater review published 21 December 1817 celebrated the return of the renowned Shakespearean actor Edmund Kean to Drury Lane after a six-week illness. Kean appeared in Richard III and Keats was enthusiastic: "the sensual life of verse springs warm from the lips of Kean, and to one learned in Shakespearean hieroglyphics, — learned in the spiritual portion of those lines to which Kean adds a sensual grandeur: his tongue must seem to have robbed 'the hybla bees, and left them honeyless.' There is an indescribable gusto in his voice, by which we feel that the utterer is thinking of the past and future, while speaking of the instant …. Kean delivers himself up to the instant feeling, without the shadow of a thought about any thing else. He feels his being as deeply as Wordsworth, or any of our intellectual monopolists."