What on Google Earth Happened to Miss Cotterell?

ABSTRACT The impetus for this essay is the discovery of three new facts about ‘Miss Cotterell’, one of the passengers who in 1820 sailed to Italy on the Maria Crowther alongside John Keats and Joseph Severn. There is a summary of the research that culminated in finding Miss Cotterell’s christening, death record and first name, before sketching her traditional place in Keats’ biography. We also give a short account of her brother, Charles Cotterell, who lived and worked in Naples. The essay also describes the project that sparked this research in the first place: an attempt to narrate Keats’ ‘Final Voyage’ from London to Rome and his final months at 26 Piazza di Spagna on the online platform Google Earth. Having reviewed the challenges these purgatorial months have posed scholars and biographers over the last 200 years, the essay ends by asking two main questions. What impact (if any) do these facts have on our understanding of Miss Cotterell and also this last act in Keats’ life? And what does it mean to be preserved for two centuries years as a bit-part player in the posthumous life of an artist like John Keats?