John Keats was born in Finsbury Pavement near London on October 31st, 1795. The first son of a stable-keeper, he had a sister and three brothers, one of whom died in infancy.

John attended a good school where he became well acquainted with ancient and contemporary literature. Under the guidance of his friend Cowden Clarke he devoted himself increasingly to literature. In 1814 Keats finally sacrificed his medical ambitions to a literary life. He soon got acquainted with celebrated artists of his time, like Leigh Hunt, Percy B. Shelley and Benjamin Robert Haydon. In May 1816, Hunt helped him publish his first poem in a magazine. A year later Keats published about thirty poems and sonnets printed in the volume "Poems".

An unmistakeable sign of consumption in February of 1820 however broke all his plans for the future, marking the beginning of what he called his "posthumous life". In the late summer of 1820, Keats was ordered by his doctors to avoid English winters and move to Italy. His friend Joseph Severn accompanied him south - first to Naples, and then to Rome. His health improved momentarily, only to collapse finally. Keats died in Rome on the 23rd of February, 1821. He was buried on the Protestant Cemetery, near the grave of Caius Cestius. On his desire, the following lines were engraved on his tombstone: "Here lies one whose name was writ in water."