[Julie Steiner]

Originally Posted by Roger Slater

I almost canceled Audubon, however, because he pretty much swindled Keats's brother when he came to the United States. I can't remember the story, but it's recounted in Keats's letters as I recall.

If it's any comfort, Roger, Audubon was bankrupted in the same episode that bankrupted George Keats.

George Keats had come to America with a clear goal: he wanted to become wealthy, and thus guarantee the financial well-being of his entire family. His parents had died when their four children were still quite young. George believed wholeheartedly in his older brother John’s genius as a poet, and hoped to free him from the necessity of worrying about money so that he could concentrate on his work. Both George and John felt strongly the responsibility of caring for their sickly younger brother Tom, who was to die at seventeen, and their little sister Fanny. They had all inherited a respectable estate, but George realized that it would never be enough to support them all unless he accepted the challenge of increasing the family’s wealth. After looking into opportunities in Cincinnati and southern Illinois, he and his wife ended up in Kentucky, in what was at first a warm relationship with the Audubons. George allowed himself to be persuaded to invest everything he had brought along to America in a boat, in partnership with Audubon. He trusted in Audubon’s local knowledge, and must have found his confidence and optimism compelling.

The details of what went wrong remain murky. The boat ended up on the bottom of the Mississippi, ruining both Audubon and Keats.[FOOTNOTE 1] From his letters to his brother, and from comments in John Keats’s replies, we know that George Keats believed that Audubon had simply swindled him. He accused the naturalist of knowing that the boat had been lost before he persuaded the Englishman to invest, and of scheming to use the Keats money to cushion his own fall (Kirk lxxxvii). The two quarreled violently, and never mended their relationship. These passages from John’s letters should suffice to convey the general tone of the Keats family’s views on the Audubons: “I cannot help thinking Mr. Audubon a dishonest man” (Letters 305); “I cannot help thinking Mr. Audubon has deceived you. I shall not like the sight of him. I shall endeavour to avoid seeing him” (Letters 324); “Give my compliments to Mrs. Audubon, and tell her I cannot think her either good-looking or honest. Tell Mr. Audubon he’s a fool…” (Letters 348).

We are never likely to know the full truth of the matter. Was Audubon a knave, or a fool, or just another unlucky victim of the vagaries of the river? Some infer from the complete absence of references to George Keats in Audubon’s journals and other writings that he felt shame regarding his conduct in the affair, but such speculations are all we have (Kirk lxxxviii). Whatever Audubon may have intended, he lost his business, his home and his property in Henderson. He and his family embarked on a wandering existence. Eventually Lucy settled as a schoolteacher in Louisiana, while Audubon spent years in England working to publish his magnum opus. Only decades later did they attain a measure of financial security, purchasing a home in upstate New York and enjoying a few years together before Audubon’s death and more business reverses left Lucy with a relatively impoverished old age.

1. Even this detail is uncertain; regardless of whether the boat sank or was confiscated, however, it was lost, and with it all of George Keats’s money.

https://dspace.nku.edu/bitstream/han...=1&isAllowed=y