The writer of the following letters was George Keats, the brother of the poet. He was born on February 28, 1797, the son of Thomas and Frances (Jennings) Keats. At an early age he had been left an orphan with his two brothers, Thomas and John, and had been placed at a private boarding school in Enfield. After leaving school George worked for a short while in the counting-room of his guardian, Richard Abbey. After a quarrel with Hodgkinson, the junior partner, he left and at the end of May, 1818, married Georgiana Augusta Wylie. At the age of twenty-one he journeyed with her to America, planning to reside in Morris Birkbeck's settlement. Keats travelled by horse and carriage from Philadelphia to Pittsburgh, and thence descended the Ohio in a keelboat. For several months the poet's brother resided at the home of Audubon, the naturalist, in Henderson, Kentucky, where he lost his money in a boat speculation. Keats finally became managing partner in a flour and saw-mill concern in which he accumulated a fortune, and settled as a merchant in Louisville. There, with the exception of a few journeys, he remained until his death on December 24, 1841.