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Britain Unlimited covers 250 Great British people and what made them famous
Who was John Keats? Poet.
Date and Place of Birth: 31st October 1795. London, England.
Family Background: Son of Thomas Keats and Frances Jennings. In 1802 his father took over the management of France's father's livery stable and Inn. In 1804 he died in a riding accident.
Education: John Clarke’s School, Enfield, London.
Essential Works:
1797: Birth of his Brother George.
1799: Birth of his Brothers Thomas and Edward (Edward died in infancy).
1802: Family moved to Enfield, London.
1803: Birth of his sister Frances.
1804: Death of his father Thomas. Mother remarried to Rawlings and disappeared.
1805: Death of his Grandfather.
1809: His Mother returns to Enfield but is seriously ill and dies. Keats is apprenticed to an Apothecary in Edmonton.
1816: First poem “Oh Solitude” published. Becomes a licensed Apothecary.
1816: Meets Percy Bysshe Shelley. Takes lodgings inn Hampstead, London.
1817: Visits the Isle of Wight and Oxford. Meets William Wordsworth.
1818: His brother George leaves for the USA Keats goes on a walking tour of Scotland with Charles Brown. Meets Fanny Brawne. Death of his brother Tom. Moves to Wentworth Place, Hampstead.
1819: Visits Chichester with Brown but has to return due to illness. Returns to London and takes rooms in the City. Moves back to Hampstead in October and becomes secretly engaged to Fanny Brawne. Meets Samuel Taylor Coleridge on a walk on the Heath. Brother George visits England.
1820: Begins his last illness in February. Moves to lodgings in Kentish Town. Moves in with Leigh-Hunt after a major Haemorrage. Moves into the Brawne household in the autumn for a month. On doctors advice sails to Italy in September.
1821: Takes up lodgings next to the Spanish Steps in Rome where his friend the painter Joseph Severn nurses him.
Written Works:
- 1817: "Poems".
- 1818: "Endymion".
- 1819: "Ode to the Nightingale".
- 1820: "Lamia". "Isabella". "Eve of St. Agnes". "Hyperion."
- (1878): "Letters to Fanny Brawne".
Marriage: Never married though engaged to Fanny Brawne.
Places of Interest:
CUMBRIA:
Dove Cottage and Museum, Grasmere, LA22 9SH. (Wordsworth Trust).
Castlerigg. (described in "Hyperion").
Tun Inn, Ireby.DORSET:
Lulworth Cove composed "Bright Star" after a sailing trip.
LONDON:
Keats House, Wentworth Place, Keats Grove, Hampstead, NW3 2RR.
Date and Place of Death: 23rd February 1821. Rome, Italy of Tuberculosis.
Age at Death: 25.
Site of Grave: English Protestant Cemetery, Rome, Italy.
