This sensitive and brilliant book, winner of the WH Smith Literary Award, is the most comprehensive life of Keats available. One of the great figures of Romanticism, Keats poured his tragically short and troubled life into creating poetry: in Robert Gittings's words, "With no other poet are the life and the works so closely linked". He offers insights into Keats's family background, his financial difficulties, illnesses and unhappy love affair with Fanny Brawne, interpreting evrey poem in the context of Keats's experience. Meticulously researched using original sources, this is the most complete picture of Keats that has ever appeared.

Contents:
Foreword
Prologue to Biography
Apprentice Years
Years of Trial
The Living Year
The Last Year
Epilogue to Life
Appendices:
The Jennings & Sweetinburgh Families
Keats' Father
Keats & Venereal Disease
Keats' Use of Bawdy
Index