Stamp Collector

20 MAY 2020 www.allaboutstamps.co.uk On the anniversary of WilliamWordsworth’s birth – he was born on 7 April 1770, exactly 250 years to the day of the stamp issue – Royal Mail celebrate the renowned poet and Romantic poetry with a set of ten stamps Poetic postage GB STAMPS grain of sand, And a Heaven in a wild flower’. Blake was not only a poet but a painter and engraver, and has been described by many as a visionary. Yet his work didn’t receive the reception it deserved during his lifetime. Perhaps most famous for the words to the hymn Jerusalem (‘And did those feet in ancient time…’), actually part of the preface to his epic Milton: A Poem in Two Books, Blake is thought to have written the poem featured on the stamp in 1803, as a comparison of innocence and cruelty. W illiam Wordsworth is regarded as having launched the ‘Romantic era’ of British poetry, was Poet Laureate and remains one of the UK’s most popular poets. The Romantic era included poetry by Wordsworth, ST Coleridge, Keats and Shelley among others, and it is period of creativity that is celebrated across the ten stamps. The stamps, each with a 1st class denomination, feature stark but effective artwork, a simple line from a poem, the name of the work and the name of the poet. It’s a simple approach that works very well and lends the set a consistent, measured feel. The first poet featured in the set is Northamptonshire-born John Clare, the son of a farm worker, who dedicated much of his work to the English countryside, often using his platform to comment on the destruction of our STAMP DETAILS The Romantic Poets Issue date: 7 April 2020 Design: The Chase Stamp Format: Landscape Stamp Size: 41mm x 30mm Number per sheet: 25/50 Printer: International Security Printers Print Process: Lithography Perforations: 14.5 x 14 Gum: PVA 1st class – ‘The Progress’, John Clare 1st class – ‘Frost at Midnight’, Samuel Taylor Coleridge 1st class – ‘Augeries of Innocence’, William Blake 1st class – ‘The Lady of the Lake’, Walter Scott 1st class – ‘To a Skylark’, Percy Shelley 1st class – ‘The Rainbow’, William Wordsworth 1st class – ‘Ode to the Snowdrop’, Mary Robinson 1st class – ‘The Fate of Adelaide’, Letitia Elizabeth Landon 1st class – ‘Ode on a Grecian Urn’, John Keats 1st class – ‘She Walks in Beauty’, Byron natural resources amidst the dust and grime of the Industrial Revolution. The line from the poem ‘The Progress of Rhyme’ hints at Clare’s love of nature: ‘For every thing I felt a love, the weeds below the birds above.’ Sadly, torn between his life as a poet and the everyday life of his family and friends, Clare began to suffer from depression and eventually lived in an asylum, where his mental illness – he claimed to be both Lord Byron and Shakespeare – didn’t stop him writing poetry. Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s ‘Frost at Midnight’, written in February 1798, is featured on the second of the stamps and again touches upon the theme of nature and the countryside, as the poet reflects on his own childhood and the hope that his own son will be brought up in the country. The next poem ‘Augeries of Innocence’ is by William Blake and the design shows a simple coastal scene, alongside the lines ‘To see a world in a