This first appeared in Lit Hub’s Literary History newsletter—sign up here. On September 19, 1819, after walking along the River Itchen in Hampshire, England, the 24-year-old poet John Keats—who had, earlier that year, completed “Ode on a Grecian Urn,” “Ode to a Nightingale,” and other now-famous works—composed what would become one of the most beloved fall poems in the English language: the aptly titled “To Autumn.” We know, because on Tuesday, September 21st, Keats wrote about it to his friend John Hamilton Reynolds: How beautiful the season is now. How fine the air – a temperate sharpness about it.
Really, without joking – Dian skies. I never liked stubble-fields so much as now – aye, better than the chilly green of the Spring. Somehow, a stubble plain looks warm, in the same way that some pictures look warm.
This struck me so much in my Sunday’s walk that I composed upon it. The resulting poem was later included in Keats’s 1820 collection Lamia, Isabella, the Eve of St. Agnes, and Other Poems, and is still widely read today, for good reason.
Extract — continue reading at the source.
