While the English poet John Keats is best known for his romantic poetry such as "Ode on a Grecian Urn" and "La Belle Dame Sans Merci," he was also a prolific correspondent who wrote dozens of letters to family and friends before his tragically early death from tuberculosis in 1821 at the age of 25. Today, the Keats Letters Project explores the poet's epistolary legacy by publishing each of his letters 200 years after the day it was written, along with "a critical commentary [and] a short dissertation, aiming to shed new light on the letters, reconceiving received ideas and offering reevaluations." Launched in 2015, this ongoing project was founded by six scholars at universities around the US and includes guest commentaries on the letters from professors, scholars, and Keats fans. In its founders' words, the Keats Letters Project "hopes to offer its readers a unique connection to Keats's epistolary oeuvre, and by extension to Keats himself."
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