Keats's letters to Fanny Brawne were published in 1878 over objections and sold at Sotheby's in 1885 for £543 17s

Keats died in Rome aged 25 and was buried on 26 February 1821 in the Protestant Cemetery. His friends Joseph Severn and Charles Brown chose a gravestone that carries no name, only the line "Here lies One Whose Name was writ in Water." His fiancée Fanny Brawne married Louis Lindon in 1833 and had three children. In 1878 Harry Buxton Forman printed Keats's love letters to her privately. Sources disagree on who allowed it; one says her son Herbert Lindon demanded letters back in 1874^†. Sir Charles Dilke, a reviewer, called their publication a great impeachment of a woman's sense of womanly delicacy. On 2 March 1885 Sotheby, Wilkinson and Hodge sold the manuscripts, and the sale realized £543 17s. Accounts differ on how many letters were sold (one says 35) and on whether the Lindon children sold them^†. Oscar Wilde wrote a sonnet about the auction. Eight of the letters, stolen decades ago, were recovered and offered at Sotheby's New York in 2026, according to reporting^†.