The Life & Work Of John Keats

John Keats, 1795-1821 – Biography & Facts

This section of the website is dedicated to the life and work of the great Romantic poet,  John Keats. Born in 1795, Keats published three books of poetry in his lifetime but was dismissed as a middle class interloper by most critics. He had no advantages of birth, wealth or education; he lost his parents in childhood, watched one brother die of tuberculosis and the other emigrate to America.

Poverty kept him from marrying the woman he loved. And he achieved lasting fame only after his early death in 1821. Yet grief and hardship never destroyed his passionate commitment to poetry.

Reading Keats is a luxury, a rare chance to experience the English language as a work of art. Whether you are new to his work or a dedicated admirer, I hope you will enjoy visiting this part of the website.

I've collected obvious things - poems and letters, biographies, etc - and lots of non-obvious things, such as original manuscript images and rarely-seen portraits. The goal was to condense a bookshelf worth of Keats into a website. That goal - of course - can never be achieved, but I'll keep trying. And a website isn't really a website until somebody visits it so.... thanks for visiting. -Marilee

'The great beauty of Poetry is, that it makes every thing every place interesting - ' John Keats to his brother George, 1819