English Romantic poet John Keats was born on October 31, 1795, in London. The oldest of four children, he lost both his parents at a young age. His father, a livery-stable keeper, died when Keats was eight; his mother died of tuberculosis six years later. After his mother’s death, Keats’s maternal grandmother appointed two London merchants, Richard Abbey and John Rowland Sandell, as guardians. Abbey, a prosperous tea broker, assumed the bulk of this responsibility, while Sandell played only a minor role. When Keats was fifteen, Abbey withdrew him from the Clarke School, Enfield, to apprentice with an apothecary-surgeon and study medicine in a London hospital. In 1816 Keats became a licensed apothecary, but he never practiced his profession, deciding instead to write poetry.
Amita Kanekar is a Mumbai-based writer, whose well-received debut novel A Spoke in the Wheel was published by Harper Collins Publishers, India. Kanekar teaches comparative mythology at the Universi
Tanika Sarkar is a historian of modern India and author of Bengal 1928-1934: The Politics of Protest and Hindu Wife, Hindu Nation: Community, Religion, Cultural Nationalism. She has also co-edited
Laurence Cox directs the MA in Community Education, Equality and Social Activism at the National University of Ireland Maynooth and co-edits the social movements journal Interface. He is active in
