Gothic Keats Press

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!

02/08/2023

Next up is ‘Shelley at Oxford’ by Colin Silver.

‘Shelley at Oxford’, an essay by Colin Silver.

27/07/2023

Here is ‘Percy Bysshe Shelley: “Atheist. Lover of Humanity. Democrat”’ by Graham Henderson.

“Percy Bysshe Shelley: ‘Atheist. Lover of Humanity. Democrat.’”, an essay by Graham Henderson.

24/07/2023

Next up in our collection of essays is ‘“The Words of a Dead Man”: Shelleyan Afterlives in the “Auden Group”’ by Dr Amanda Blake Davis.

Shelley’s west wind, at once ‘Destroyer and Preserver’, sings through MacNeice and Yeats’s poetry as an ‘unseen presence’ that drives and energises the modern poets’ verse.

19/07/2023

Next in our collection of essays on the anniversary of Shelley’s death, here is ‘The Mountain that “Walks Abroad”’ by Professor Nahoko Miyamoto Alvey.

There is a fragment by Percy Bysshe Shelley that begins with an address to Mary: “Listen, listen, Mary mine —”. The poem’s date of composition, May 4, 1818, was added when the fragment was given a title “Passage of the Apennines” and included in Posthumous Poems of Percy Bysshe Shelley e...

17/07/2023

Here is a piece by the Shelley Memorial Project, whose aim to establish a lasting memorial to Percy Bysshe Shelley we wholeheartedly support. Learn more about the Shelley Memorial Project and how to get involved below:

The Shelley Memorial Project’s objective is to commission an artwork that clearly relates to and commemorates the significant contribution that Percy Bysshe Shelley made, not only to literature, but to political and social philosophy.

14/07/2023

Following the introduction on Shelley’s death, here is 'In Pursuit of Percy Shelley, "The First Celebrity Vegan": An Essay on Meat, S*x, and Broccoli' by Professor Michael Owen Jones.

Through his writings opposing cruelty to animals and his vision of a utopian society infused with equality, social justice, and spirituality that begins with an individual’s diet, the Romantic poet Percy Bysshe Shelley influenced generations of reformers and vegetarians.

13/07/2023

Here is a brief introduction on the 200th anniversary of Percy Bysshe Shelley’s death by Clay Franklin Johnson.

Today marks the 200th anniversary of Percy Bysshe Shelley’s death. He drowned in the Gulf of La Spezia on 8 July 1822, two hundred years ago today. He died less than a month before his thirtieth birthday.

08/07/2023

On this day last year, on the 200th anniversary of our dear Percy Bysshe Shelley’s death, we published a collection of essays in commemoration of his extraordinary life. All essays were penned in Shelley’s honour by Shelleyans and scholars, including Professor Michael Owen Jones, Professor Nahoko Miyamoto Alvey, Dr Amanda Blake Davis, Graham Henderson, Lynn Shepherd, Colin Silver, Marty Ambrose, a piece by the Shelley Memorial Project whose aim to establish a memorial in Horsham we wholeheartedly support, and an introduction by Clay Franklin Johnson.

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

05/07/2023

We now have a News & Announcements page for those who would like to follow our publication updates and submission calls. More information will be posted soon with regard to our upcoming submission of essays and poetry in honour of the bicentenary of Lord Byron’s death.

As admirers of the life and writings of Lord Byron, infamously labeled as ‘mad, bad and dangerous to know’, we are excited to announce an upcoming submission in his honour. For the 200th anniversary of Byron’s death, 19 April 2024, we plan to publish a collection of essays (as we did for the b...

04/07/2023

As mentioned yesterday, we brought out a collection of wonderful essays on the subject of Dracula at the end of last year which celebrated the 125th anniversary of the publication of Bram Stoker’s Dracula (1897), the 30th anniversary of the Coppola’s brilliant Gothic film of the same title (1992), and the 100th anniversary of F.W. Murnau’s influential classic Nosferatu (1922). Read Dracula and Beyond: The 125th Anniversary of the Vampire Myth here:

Dracula and Beyond: The 125th Anniversary of the Vampire Myth

03/07/2023

Greetings, all. Although we have been absent from social media this past year, we have not been idle. Besides our collection of essays in honour of Percy Bysshe Shelley last July for the 200th anniversary of his death, we also brought out a collection of essays on the subject of Bram Stoker’s Dracula in December. We are currently in the process of editing and publishing our first novel which will be released this year. On top of that, we are planning both a collection of essays and contemporary poetry in honour of Lord Byron for the 200th anniversary of his death in 2024. Keep an eye on our website for more information.

We at Gothic Keats Press welcome essays from academics, students, and independent researchers alike. Our current collection of essays is in honour of Percy Bysshe Shelley.

06/10/2022

For we have lowered the price of our first published book of poems. The Kindle is the lowest we could price it, our Hardcover (printed using local printer & bindery) is now $19.99. Today only.

Kindle https://amazon.com/Ride-Through-Faerie-Other-Poems-ebook/dp/B09KNW3ZQG

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

30/08/2022

“One secret which I alone possessed was the hope to which I had dedicated myself; and the moon gazed on my midnight labours, while, with unrelaxed and breathless eagerness, I pursued nature to her hiding-places. Who shall conceive the horrors of my secret toil, as I dabbled among the unhallowed damps of the grave…? I had returned to my old habits. I collected bones from charnel houses; and disturbed, with profane fingers, the tremendous secrets of the human frame.”

— Mary Shelley, born on this day 30 August 1797

24/08/2022

Dr. John William Polidori tragically died by su***de 24 August 1821, just two weeks before his 26th birthday. His seductive, aristocratic vampire, Lord Ruthven (unflatteringly based on Lord Byron), had an everlasting influence on vampire literature.

15/08/2022

“I had, too, some little commissions to finish. Among these was a drawing of Keats’s grave at the Protestant Cemetery, which I had undertaken for Mr. George Howard, for whom the previous spring I had done a drawing of Shelley’s tomb. Working in that restful garden, beneath the murmur of the cypresses, one might almost feel the spirits of the poets still haunted the place, and could understand the feeling expressed by Shelley that ‘it might make one almost in love with death to think that one should be buried in so sweet a spot.’”

—Walter Crane, born on this day in 1845

https://www.gothickeatspress.com/essays-to-honour-the-bicentennial-of-percy-bysshe-shelleys-death-1822-2022

12/08/2022

William Blake, who died on this day 12 August 1827, professed to have witnessed a “fairy funeral” in this brilliant little anecdote that was recorded in The Life of William Blake (1830) by Allan Cunningham.

"I was walking alone in my garden, there was great stillness among the branches and flowers and more than common sweetness in the air; I heard a low and pleasant sound, and I knew not whence it came. At last I saw the broad leaf of a flower move, and underneath I saw a procession of creatures of the size and colour of green and gray grasshoppers, bearing a body laid out on a rose leaf, which they buried with songs, and then disappeared. It was a fairy funeral."

04/08/2022

Two hundred years ago today, 4 August 1822, Percy Bysshe Shelley would have had reached his thirtieth birthday. Tragically, the Fates had different plans for him just weeks prior.

Here is a collection of essays in 's honor: https://www.gothickeatspress.com/essays-to-honour-the-bicentennial-of-percy-bysshe-shelleys-death-1822-2022