Fanny Brawne: John Keats’ Bright Star

The ring in the picture is the one that John Keats gave to his beloved Fanny Brawne as engagement ring in the Autumn of 1891. The stone is a garnet – set in gold. An inexpensive piece of jewellery, it reflects the financial condition of a poor poet struggling to make ends meet.

Critics and admirers of John Keats have maligned Fanny (Frances) Brawne for many years because apparently, she showed little interest in Keats' poetry while he was alive, and second, she chose to marry after the poet's death. Few know that Fanny mourned Keats for six years and continued to wear the ring till her death in 1865. She left it to her daughter Margaret, who then passed it on to her niece Frances Ellis, who made a gift of the ring to Keats House in Hampstead.

These star-crossed lovers met in the autumn of 1818, a time that was very difficult for the young poet. His poetry was not appreciated, but more importantly, his brother Tom was critically ill with tuberculosis. He had just returned from a tour in Scotland with his friend Charles Brown when the latter had rented out half of his double house Wentworth Place to Mrs. Brawne. The widow lived there with her three children and eighteen-year-old Fanny was the eldest of them. While not exactly beautiful, Fanny was high-spirited and also somewhat coquettish. John Keats was attracted to her even though he often lamented that she remined him of Criseyde, an infamous flirt of Chaucer. 

In spite of everything, the letters exchanged during this time reveal that they cared for each other deeply. Keats died in Rome on Friday, 23 February 1821, and it took three weeks for the news to reach home. Fanny wrote about his death to his sister Frances: "I have not got over it and never shall." She continued her correspondence with Frances for quite some years.

But whatever his first impressions were, Fanny and John fell in love. The young lover would often stop his serious pursuit of poetry and write sonnets like "Bright star, would I were stedfast as thou art" for Fanny. According to some critics, the mysterious seductress in "La Belle Dame sans Merci" is also based on the character of Fanny Brawne. While that is still a conjecture,  Keats wrote some really beautiful and moving letters to his beloved with sentences like, "Love is my religion — I could die for that — I could die for you. My Creed is Love and you are its only tenet."

People around them, however, were not very happy about their engagement. Even though Keats was a well-disposed, cheerful young man, he had little prospect in earning enough money to settle down soon. Fanny's mother was worried about her daughter's future and Keats' friends were dubious about the depth of Fanny's attachment to Keats. In 1820, when he was seriously ill and coughing up blood, Keats proposed to her to break off the engagement, but she refused.

During their last months, they were separated, and there were often quarrels and suspicions on part of Keats who knew he was not physically getting better. And Fanny was not a typically docile woman. In spite of everything, the letters exchanged during this time reveal that they cared for each other deeply. Keats died in Rome on Friday, 23 February 1821, and it took three weeks for the news to reach home. Fanny wrote about his death to his sister Frances: "I have not got over it and never shall." She continued her correspondence with Frances for quite some years.

During her lifetime, Fanny herself had witnessed the growth of her old flame, but she never claimed herself as his muse, nor did she ever tell her husband Louis Lindon, about her engagement to the young poet. However, she did defend the Keats a few times when others tried to defame him for personal gain.

Fanny had kept her lover's books, over three dozen of letters and other mementos and often showed them to her three children. She died in 1865 and her husband in 1872 and only then did their children come forward with the tale of the romance of Keats and Fanny and the letters. By then, twenty-five years had passed since John Keats's death and he was quite a celebrity.