In the summer of 1820, Keats published this collection, his third and final volume of poetry. A few months earlier, he had started coughing up blood; the following February, he would die of tuberculosis in Rome, aged just twenty-five. This volume contains his greatest work, written in an astonishing burst of creative genius in 1819. It includes 'Lamia', his tale of love and betrayal in ancient Corinth; the haunting medieval romance of 'The Eve of St Agnes'; and his six famous odes, now considered among the most famous verse in the language.
John Keats (1795-1821) is one of the greatest English poets and a key figure in the Romantic movement. He grew up in London and undertook medical training before finding his vocation in poetry. His poems include 'The Eve of St Agnes', 'La Belle Dame Sans Merci' and 'To Autumn', and his group of five odes, which include 'Ode to a Nightingale', are ranked among the greatest short poems in the English language. They were written shortly before his tragically early death, in Rome, from tuberculosis at the age of twenty-five.
