Letter #100: To George and Georgiana Keats, 14-31 October 1818

We’ve hit two milestones with our latest letter: number 100 (woo hoo!) and the first of the great journal letters sent to George and Georgiana in America. It wasn’t until early October that word from George and Georgiana had been received in London. As will be the case in most of the transatlantic letters, Keats comments in this one about the nature of that tenuous connection linking them by the post. We daresay it’s a remarkable feat that the letters ever arrived at their destinations!

Because of the great distance separating Keats from his brother and sister-in-law, he would typically write long letters over the space of weeks and months, as opposed to writing shorter letters every week or so. Reading these journal letters is thus a much different experience than reading the sort of letters we’re used to reading from Keats. Each letter spans more time, each letter covers more topical ground, and each letter allows for more extended ruminations. In the example from today, we cover just over two weeks, we learn of a variety of topics (current goings-on, Keats’s thoughts on American character, Tom’s ailing state), and we dive deeply into Keats’s attitudes toward women, matrimony and children. It’s on these last topics that our response for today focuses, from Ivana M. Krsmanović. Enjoy!

To read the letter, you can head over to H. B. Forman’s 1895 edition here. Or you can work your way through the many images below, courtesy of Harvard’s Houghton Library.

Page 1 of Keats’s 14-31 October 1818 letter to George and Georgiana Keats. Keats Collection, 1814-1891 (MS Keats 1.39). Houghton Library, Harvard University.

Page 2 of Keats’s 14-31 October 1818 letter to George and Georgiana Keats. Keats Collection, 1814-1891 (MS Keats 1.39). Houghton Library, Harvard University.

Page 3 of Keats’s 14-31 October 1818 letter to George and Georgiana Keats. Keats Collection, 1814-1891 (MS Keats 1.39). Houghton Library, Harvard University.

Page 4 of Keats’s 14-31 October 1818 letter to George and Georgiana Keats. Keats Collection, 1814-1891 (MS Keats 1.39). Houghton Library, Harvard University.

Page 5 of Keats’s 14-31 October 1818 letter to George and Georgiana Keats. Keats Collection, 1814-1891 (MS Keats 1.39). Houghton Library, Harvard University.

Page 6 of Keats’s 14-31 October 1818 letter to George and Georgiana Keats. Keats Collection, 1814-1891 (MS Keats 1.39). Houghton Library, Harvard University.

Page 7 of Keats’s 14-31 October 1818 letter to George and Georgiana Keats. Keats Collection, 1814-1891 (MS Keats 1.39). Houghton Library, Harvard University.

Page 8 of Keats’s 14-31 October 1818 letter to George and Georgiana Keats. Keats Collection, 1814-1891 (MS Keats 1.39). Houghton Library, Harvard University.

Page 9 of Keats’s 14-31 October 1818 letter to George and Georgiana Keats. Keats Collection, 1814-1891 (MS Keats 1.39). Houghton Library, Harvard University.

Page 10 of Keats’s 14-31 October 1818 letter to George and Georgiana Keats. Keats Collection, 1814-1891 (MS Keats 1.39). Houghton Library, Harvard University.

Page 11 of Keats’s 14-31 October 1818 letter to George and Georgiana Keats. Keats Collection, 1814-1891 (MS Keats 1.39). Houghton Library, Harvard University.

Page 12 of Keats’s 14-31 October 1818 letter to George and Georgiana Keats. Keats Collection, 1814-1891 (MS Keats 1.39). Houghton Library, Harvard University.

Page 13 of Keats’s 14-31 October 1818 letter to George and Georgiana Keats. Keats Collection, 1814-1891 (MS Keats 1.39). Houghton Library, Harvard University.

Page 14 of Keats’s 14-31 October 1818 letter to George and Georgiana Keats. Keats Collection, 1814-1891 (MS Keats 1.39). Houghton Library, Harvard University.

Page 15 of Keats’s 14-31 October 1818 letter to George and Georgiana Keats. Keats Collection, 1814-1891 (MS Keats 1.39). Houghton Library, Harvard University.

Page 16 of Keats’s 14-31 October 1818 letter to George and Georgiana Keats. Keats Collection, 1814-1891 (MS Keats 1.39). Houghton Library, Harvard University.

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