Keats: A Brief Life in Nine Poems and One Epitaph

In this brief life, Lucasta Miller examines nine of John Keats's best-known poems—including 'Endymion,' 'On First Looking into Chapman's Homer,' and 'Ode to Autumn'—along with his epitaph.

For each poem, Miller excavates its backstory by exploring the circumstances of its composition, Keats's living situation, his relationships, and the influences that shaped his work.

The book combines a mini-anthology of Keats's poetry, critical readings of those poems, and a well-written biography that resurrects the real Keats: a lower-middle-class outsider from a tragic family whose extraordinary energy and love of language allowed him to become a central figure in English literature.