Born: 31 October 1795 · Died: 23 February 1821 · Age at death: 25
How old was John Keats when he died?
John Keats died aged 25. He was born on 31 October 1795 and died on 23 February 1821.
English Romantic poet of Ode to a Nightingale and To Autumn who died of tuberculosis in Rome at only 25
Did you know?He originally trained to be a surgeon and apothecary before deciding to abandon medicine for a life of poetry.
Quick facts
Date of birth31 October 1795
Date of death23 February 1821
Age at death25
Cause of deathTuberculosis
NationalityBritish
BirthplaceLondon, United Kingdom
Occupationpoet, judge-rapporteur, physician
Editor's Take:
Keats wrote poems of astonishing richness in a career of only a few years. Trained as a surgeon, he gave up medicine to devote himself to poetry. In a single remarkable year he wrote the odes that are now among the most admired poems in English. Critics mocked him during his lifetime, and he died of tuberculosis in Rome at 25. Today he is seen as one of the great Romantic poets.
Key Milestones
1816: Licence – apothecary
1818: Endymion – poem
1819: Odes – great year
1820: Lamia – collection
John Keats (31 October 1795 – 23 February 1821) was an English poet of the second generation of Romantic poets, along with Lord Byron and Percy Bysshe Shelley. His poems had been in publication for less than four years when he died of tuberculosis at the age of 25.