The final version of the sonnet was copied into a volume of "The Poetical Works of William Shakespeare", opposite Shakespeare's poem, "A Lover's Complaint". The book had been given to Keats in 1819 by John Hamilton Reynolds. Joseph Severn maintained that the last draft was transcribed into the book in late September 1820 while they were aboard the ship "Maria Crowther", travelling to Rome, from where the very sick Keats would never return. The book also contains one sonnet by his friend Reynolds and one by Severn. Keats probably gave the book to Joseph Severn in January 1821 before his death in February, aged 25. Severn believed that it was Keats's last poem and that it had been composed especially for him.