Percy Bysshe Shelley ( 4 August 1792 – 8 July 1822)
Lynton
Percy Bysshe Shelley was one of the major English
Romantic poets and is critically regarded as among the
finest lyric poets. His passionate quest for human love
and social reform was expressed in poetry that ranks with
the greatest with its mastery of the English language.
Percy Bysshe Shelley was the son of Sir Timothy Shelley,
Member of Parliament for New Shoreham and was heir to
the wealthy estates acquired by his grandfather. Whilst
studying at Oxford , Shelley developed a strong hatred of
bullying and tyranny. He was expelled in 1811 with his
friend Thomas Jefferson Hogg for writing The Necessity
Of Atheism, a pamphlet attacking aspects of Christianity.
Shelley's Hotel in Lynmouth is named after Percy Bysshe
Shelley. He and his 16-year-old bride, Harriet, spent the
summer there after they eloped in 1812. He left owing £30. Here he wrote The Declaration
Of Rights and Queen Mab, a poem celebrating the merits of republicanism, atheism,
vegetarianism and free love. Departing for North Wales they eventually returned to London
where Shelley met with fellow radicals Leigh Hunt and William Godwin, whose daughter
Mary he fell in love with and with whom he eloped to France in the summer of 1814. Mary
had a son, William, by Shelley and with his wife Harriet committing suicide this allowed
them to marry in December of that year. However the courts declared him unfit to raise,
Ianthe and Charles, his children by Harriet, who were placed in foster care.
With his health suffering and living beyond his means Percy and Mary decided in 1818 to
go to Italy and meet up with Byron. Their daughter Clara became ill and died. They
departed for Naples for the winter settling in Rome in the spring of 1819 where Shelley
wrote Prometheus Unbound and The Cenci. With the death of their son William from
malaria they fled north to Livorno, then to Florence where their only surviving child Percy
Florence Shelley was born.
1822 saw Shelley settle near Lerici. On 8th July 1822 he sailed across the Gulf of Spezia
with Edward Williams to welcome his old friend Leigh Hunt and both Shelley and Williams
drowned when their boat sank at sea in a storm. Shelley's body was washed ashore
several days later and was cremated in a funeral pyre on the shore of Via Reggio,
surrounded by three of his closest friends Edward Trelawny, Leigh Hunt and Lord Byron.
His heart refused to burn, Trewlany snatched it from the pyre and gave it to Mary Shelley
who kept if for the rest of her life.