John Keats was born in London at the end of October 1795. He died in Rome on February 23, 1821. Eliot referred to the letters of Keats as " the most notable and the most important ever written by and English poet, " primarily because " there is hardly one statement of Keats poetry, which will not be found true." Keats can be very easily identified as becoming one of the greatest poets in only 25 years. Douglas Bush has said that no other English poet would rank as high as Keats if he had died so young, not even William Shakespeare. Keats attended school at Enfeld through elementary stages. Following his elementary education he was apprenticed to an apothecary-surgeon at Edmonton. After four years of his apprenticeship Keats entered Guy's and St. Thomas's hospitals in London as a medical student and received a certificate allowing him to practice.
John's father was killed when Keats was only eight years of age. Before Keats turned 15 his mother died of tuberculosis. Then, in 1818 Keats brother Tom died of tuberculosis foreshadowing Keats" own death. After the death of his parents, Keats and his siblings were left with their biological grandmother. Their grandmother decided to appoint two businessmen as legal guardians of Keats and the three remaining siblings. John's grandmother set aside a rather large trust fund for the children but the poorly chosen businessmen kept the money for their own. Four years after the grandmother was appointed she passed away, another victim of tuberculosis. Later in his life at the age of 25, Keats died of tuberculosis only to become one of the greatest English poets in history.
