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Funny Love Pics Biography

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On 8 December 1865, the front page of the London Times included the following obituary: 'On the 4 inst., at 34 Coleshill-street, Eaton-square, Frances, the wife of Louis Lindon, Esq. Friends will kindly accept this intimation.' The 65 year old Mrs Lindon was survived by her husband, a sales agent twelve years her junior, and three children. The eldest, 31 year old Edmund was in government service; 27 year old Herbert and 21 year old Margaret still lived at home. Their mother's death naturally affected them, but it was otherwise of interest only to those with memories of Hampstead forty-six years ago. For it was there, in the autumn of 1818, that Frances Lindon had been known as Fanny Brawne. And it was there that she met a struggling young poet named John Keats. The anonymous Mrs Lindon was, in fact, the mysterious, unnamed beloved of the now famous Keats.

It was seven years after her death before Fanny's identity became known. Though she had told her children of her romance with Keats, and shown them her collection of his books and love letters, she had also made them promise to never tell their father. But when Louis Lindon died in 1872, Fanny's children (led primarily by Herbert) were finally able to profit from their mother's story.

And profit they did. Though Keats had died in 1821, just 25 years old and largely unknown, the resulting years had witnessed a belated recognition of his genius. He was now considered among the greatest English poets. His works sold briskly and, in 1848, the first biography of Keats was published. Written by Richard Monckton Milnes with the aid of several of Keats's friends, it nevertheless angered many others. Like Percy Shelley's elegy 'Adonais', Milnes's biography created an image of Keats as a sickly dreamer done to death by bad reviews. It was a sentimental portrait and psychologically false. And though it mentioned Keats's engagement to a young lady, it never named the lady in question.

Fanny had witnessed the growth of Keats's reputation; perhaps she had read the numerous books which eulogized him. But she never revealed herself, nor took a noteworthy interest in his life. Her husband knew only that she and the poet had met as neighbors in Hampstead. Fanny never told him otherwise.

But she had kept Keats's love letters to her, over three dozen of them; many were mere notes, others lengthy chronicles of his devotion, others jealous ramblings which revealed a heretofore new (and, to his admirers, unpleasant) aspect of Keats's character. These letters would later be celebrated as among the most beautiful ever written. But in the 1870s, matters were quite different. Fanny clearly believed they were valuable, or else she would never have given them to her children. Yet what sort of value did she envision? Did she think they would aid scholarship? Or give new insight into Keats's life? Or did she intend for her children to sell them and literally profit from her long ago romance? We do not know the answer. We do know, however, that, upon his father's death, Herbert Lindon immediately sought to sell the letters.

And so while no one considered the death of 65 year old Frances Lindon to be noteworthy, the name of John Keats's beloved was noteworthy indeed. Thus began the contradictory legacy of Fanny Brawne.

'Shall I give you Miss Brawne? She is about my height with a fine style of countenance of the lengthened sort - she wants sentiment in every feature - she manages to make her hair look well - her nostrils are fine though a little painful - her mouth is bad and good - her Profile is better than her full-face which indeed is not full but pale and thin without showing any bone - her shape is very graceful and so are her movements - Her arms are good her hands badish - her feet tolerable.... She is not seventeen - but she is ignorant - monstrous in her behavior flying out in all directions, calling people such names that I was forced lately to make use of the term Minx - this I think not from any innate vice but from a penchant she has for acting stylishly. I am however tired of such style and shall decline any more of it.' John Keats, in a letter to his brother George, mid-December 1818

Keats and Fanny first met in the midst of great personal turmoil for the poet. His youngest brother Tom was desperately ill with tuberculosis; it had already killed their mother, would soon claim Tom and later Keats himself. And when their relationship began, its greatest obstacle was not illness but money.

It was the autumn of 1818. Keats had recently returned from a walking tour of Scotland with his friend Charles Brown. Brown had rented out his half of the double house called Wentworth Place to the Brawne family. When he returned, the Brawnes moved to Elm Cottage, a brief walk away. But while they had lived at Wentworth Place, they had become close friends with Brown's neighbors (and Keats's friends), the kindly Dilke family. The Dilkes had spoken often of Keats, praising him in the highest terms. And so when the Brawne family finally met the esteemed young Mr Keats, they were prepared to like him.

Mrs Brawne was widowed and had three children - 18 year old Fanny, 14 year old son Sam and 9 year old daughter Margaret. The teenaged Fanny was not considered beautiful, but she was spirited and kind. She was also a realist and immensely practical, perhaps as a result of her family's straitened circumstances. She took great care with her appearance and enjoyed flirting with young admirers. As Hampstead was close to an army barracks, there were numerous military dances throughout the year. Fanny was a popular participant. When they first met, Keats was struck by her coquettish sense of fun, and it later pricked his jealousy too often for comfort. 'My greatest torment since I have known you has been the fear of you being a little inclined to the Cressid,' he would tell her later, referring to Chaucer's infamous flirt.

They met at the Dilkes' home, as Fanny later recalled, and '[Keats's] conversation was in the highest degree interesting and his spirits good, excepting at moments when anxiety regarding his brother's health dejected them.' Indeed, Keats, whatever his first impressions of young Miss Brawne, was too caught up with his younger brother's decline to ponder any attraction. By the end of November, with Tom close to death, Keats spent nearly every waking moment at Tom's bedside. The little rooms at Well Walk, once the scene of close companionship for the Keats brothers, were now haunted with disappointment, despair and grief. When Tom died on 1 December, Keats was worn and numb. The memory of Tom's terrible, lingering illness would never be forgotten.

But he at least had a welcome distraction in Fanny Brawne. Eager to escape Well Walk, he gladly accepted Brown's invitation to share Wentworth Place with him. This was not charity on Brown's part; Keats paid him the normal rate for lodging. Since he now lived next door to the Dilkes, Keats visited with more frequency. And each time, the brown-haired, blue-eyed Fanny made a greater impression. She both confused and exasperated Keats, and therein lay her attraction. He simply could not understand her. In mid-December, two weeks after Tom's death, he wrote a long letter to George and Georgiana in America. Its contents spanned a fortnight and Fanny is notably mentioned: 'Mrs Brawne who took Brown's house for the summer still resides in Hampstead. She is a very nice woman and her daughter senior is I think beautiful, elegant, graceful, silly, fashionable and strange. We have a little tiff now and then - and she behaves a little better, or I must have sheered off.' And later the poet gave the more vivid description cited at the top of this section.

Keats was able to occasionally dismiss Fanny from his mind. She rates only a passing mention in a mid-February letter to George (he and Fanny have an occasional 'chat and a tiff'). Poetry had once more become a consuming passion. But it would only be a matter of time before both Fanny and poetry occupied positions of equal importance in his life. We know little of Fanny's literary inclinations, but Keats - who had once commented, 'I have met with women who I really think would like to be married to a Poem and to be given away by a Novel' - was not seeking poetic validation from Fanny. Though she read his work, and admired it, she did not participate in its creation.