Item 1 - Letter from Charles Armitage Brown to Richard Monckton Milnes

2 ff.

25 Oxford Street, Plymouth. - George Keats has taken legal steps to prevent publication of his brother's poems; can they be considered anybody's property fourteen years after the author's death? Believes he has copies of all Keats' poems. Has written nothing for several weeks owing to a bruised back and abstinence from snuff: 'The act of writing without snuff in my nose, gives me the sensation of not having had a wink of sleep for a week'; doctors warned him to give it up when he suffered a fit in the street and injured his back. Is living with his half-sister and niece and prefers this place to Italy; [his son] Carlino is working at mathematics for a civil engineer's profession. Landor writes from London; asks why he has returned; reports from Florence state that 'Mrs Landor was abusing me with all her might - this is vastly shocking, but one comfort is that I must be even with her'.

HOUG/227/50: note on legal advice as to copyright in Keats' poetry, 27 Oct. 1835.