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In collection

Details
TITLE

Autograph letter by Edward Trelawny to Joseph Severn

SUMMARY

Keats had asked for the wording on his grave to be simply ‘Here lies one whose name was writ in water’, but his friend Charles Brown insisted on adding more elaborate wording. Severn, who was making the arrangements in Rome, hesitated. In April 1823 Trelawny arrived in the city to see to Shelley’s remains (‘a Mad Chap’ wrote Severn, ‘who is this odd fish?’), and took an uninvited interest in Keats’s gravestone. He suggested an alternative inscription (see letter, right side).

NAME

Trelawny, Edward John, 1792-1881 (sender)
Severn, Joseph, 1793-1879 (recipient)

DATE

1823 April 24

ITEM

3 sheets

MEDIUM

manuscript

MATERIALS

paper

LANGUAGE

eng

GENRE

autographs (manuscripts)
letters (correspondence)

PERSONAL NAME SUBJECT

Keats, John, 1795-1821

TOPICAL TERM SUBJECT

sepulchral monuments

CHRONOLOGICAL SUBJECT

1823

ACQUISITION NOTE

Gift of Mrs Eleanor Furneaux to the Keats-Shelley Memorial Association (KSMA), 8 December 1910.

LOCATION

KSH

Archive

THR-3.9a


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