John Keats

John Keats was born in London in 1795. He and his siblings were orphaned at a young age - his father died in a riding accident in 1804 and his mother died six years later. Keats then left Enfield school to train as an apothecary and a surgeon but he was to leave his profession to dedicate his time to poetry. His first volume, Poems, was published in 1817 and only two more volumes, in 1818 and 1820, were published during his lifetime. In 1818 he fell in love with his neighbour Fanny Brawne, but he broke off their engagement due to his increasing ill health and lack of funds. In 1820 he moved to Italy where he died a year later of tuberculosis, the disease that claimed his mother and his brother Tom.