THE ROMANTIC REBELS (An Atlantic Book)

Byron, Shelley, Keats and the poets and critics of their period -- the Hunts, Godwin, Hogg, Cowper, Coleridge, Wordsworth (these last sketchily). A full canvas, too full, perhaps, for clarity -- for she jumps from one of the ""rebels"" to another in a rather disturbing and confusing way, and crosses and recrosses their checkered careers. What ill-starred geniuses they were --how little able to control their fates, to mold environment with character. This is no rose colored spectacle view of them -- and many of her conclusions, much of her source material, are new. Miss Winwar has a faculty for making her characters and her period alive in the present, but I don't think she has made ""the romantic rebels"" quite as novel and fresh and exciting as the pre-Raphaelite group of Poor Splendid Wings. However, the fame -- and notoriety -- of these three figures will be an added factor for easy sales.