Fanny Brawne

Common card · No. 245942

Frances Brawne Lindon (9 August 1800 – 4 December 1865) is best known as the fiancée and muse to English Romantic poet John Keats. As Fanny Brawne, she met Keats, who was her neighbour in Hampstead, at the beginning of his brief period of intense creative activity in 1818. Although his first written impressions of Brawne were quite critical, his imagination seems to have turned her into the goddess-figure he needed to worship, as expressed in Endymion, and scholars have acknowledged her as his muse. They became secretly engaged in October 1819, but Keats soon discovered that he was suffering from tuberculosis. His condition limited their opportunities to meet, but their correspondence revealed passionate devotion. In September 1820, he left for the warmer climate of Rome, and her mother agreed to their marrying on his projected return, but he died there in February 1821, aged twenty-five. Brawne drew consolation from her continuing friendship with Keats' younger sister, who was also called...

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