John Keats (1795–1821) was an English Romantic poet. He was the eldest of four children and had a happy stable childhood until his father died in 1804. John's mother quickly remarried, and as quickly separated, moving her family in with John's maternal grandmother, and abandoning them. She returned in 1808 but died in 1809, when John was fourteen. School and literature became refuges for John. In order to have a stable career, in 1811 he became apprenticed to a surgeon. Keats' poems were in publication for only four years before he died but his fame grew posthumously. Today his poems are amongst the most analysed in English literature.