Percy Bysshe Shelley

Steve WoodTCCC

1792 Percy Bysshe Shelley is born, the oldest child of

Sir Timothy Shelley and Elizabeth Pilford. Their children include:

Percy Bysshe 1792 Elizabeth 1794 Helen 1796 Mary 1797 Helen 1799 Margaret 1801 John 1806

1798 Shelley studies with his clergyman

Reverend Evan Edwards.

1802-1804 Shelley attends Syon Academy, near

London.

1804-1810 Shelley studies at Eton College.

1808 Shelley is engaged to his cousin Harriet

Grove.

1810 Shelley breaks off his engagement. Zastrozzi is published. Original Poetry by Victor and Cazire is published

and then withdrawn. He enters University College, Oxford. There he meets Thomas Jefferson Hogg. Posthumous Fragments of Margaret Nicholson is

published. St. Irvyne is published.

1811 Shelley meets Harriet Westbrook in

January. In February Shelley and Hogg publish The

Necessity of Atheism anonymously. On March 25, Shelley and Hogg are

expelled from Oxford.

1811 Shelley and Harriet Westbrook elope; they

are married in Scotland on August 29. In the fall, Hogg tries to seduce Harriet.

1812 Shelley works on behalf of Irish

independence; he publishes a number of political pamphlets.

1812 Percy Bysshe Shelley

begins a correspondence with William Godwin in January.

They meet for the first time in October.

1812 On November 11,

Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin meets Percy Shelley when he and and his wife Harriet Westbrook dine with the Godwins. She is 15; he is 20.

1813 Queen Mab is published in May. A daughter, Ianthe Shelley, is born on June

23.

1814 A Refutation of Deism is published. Increasingly despondent over his growing

passion for Mary, Shelley attempts suicide.

1814 On July 28, Mary and Percy Shelley elope to

France, accompanied by Claire Clairmont. At the time, Harriet is five months pregnant.

Despite his own views concerning sexual freedom and marriage, William Godwin refuses any communication with his daughter for the next two and a half years.

They take a six-week tour through France, Switzerland, Germany, and Holland.

1814 While in Paris, they leave behind a box of papers. 

Mary will later suspect it to contain letters "George Byron" uses to blackmail her in 1845.

They return to London in September.  Mary is pregnant when they return.  Shelley eventually introduces Mary to a friend, Thomas Jefferson Hogg.

On November 30, Shelley's wife Harriet gives birth to a son (their second child) Charles.

1815 Sir Bysshe Shelley, Percy’s grandfather, dies. An

annual income of 1000 pounds begins six months later.

In January, Hogg claims to be in love with Mary, while Percy may have been having an affair with Claire.

On February 22, Mary gives birth to a daughter, two months premature.  The daughter dies on March 26.

Almost immediately, Mary gets pregnant again.

1816 On January 24, Mary gives birth to a son,

William. In February, the first volume of poems with

Shelley’s name on it appears – Alastor; or, The Spirit of Solitude, and Other Poems.

“He lived, he died, he sung in solitude.” from Alastor

1816 Claire begins to carry on

an affair with Lord Byron.  Eventually, Mary, Percy, and Claire leave England to follow Byron (and to avoid Percy's creditors).  They settle in Geneva by the end of May, and live there for the summer.

1816 Mary Shelley begins Frankenstein in

response to a ghost story contest and a dream.

1816 The family, including the now-pregnant Claire,

returns to England at the end of the summer. In October, Mary's half sister Fanny commits

suicide. In December, the drowned body of Shelley's wife

Harriet is found.  Pregnant, she had been missing for a month.

On December 30, Shelley and Mary are married, and William Godwin finally reconciles with his daughter.

1817 Claire gives birth to Lord Byron's daughter (Alba,

then later named Allegra by her father) in January. In March, Shelley is denied custody of his

children by Harriet. Mary completes Frankenstein while she herself is

pregnant for the third time. She gives birth to a daughter, Clara, on September

2.

1818 Frankenstein, or the

Modern Prometheus is published on March 11.  Several reviewers believe that Percy had actually written the novel.

Percy, meanwhile, is working on some of his most famous poetry, including Prometheus Unbound.

Shelley writing Prometheus Unbound by Joseph Severn

1818 In the summer of 1818, Percy, Mary and

the children chase Byron around Europe, trying to reconcile him with his daughter.

During a hurried journey in Italy in September, Clara gets sick and dies.

1818 On December 27, an infant Elena Adelaide

is born in Naples. When the child is registered on February 27, 1819, the parents are listed as Percy Shelley and Marina Padurin. The identity of this child remains a mystery. Some theories claim the girl was Percy's illegitimate child; other suggest that she was an infant he planned to adopt in order to replace Clara.

1819 The Shelleys continue to live in Italy. Mary gets pregnant again early in the year. On June 7, their son William dies of malaria. “We came to Italy thinking to do Shelley’s health

good – but the climate is not by any means warm enough to be of benefit to him, yet it is that that has destroyed my two children” (Letter from June 29, 1819).

1819 On November 12, Mary gives birth to the

only child that would survive her and her husband; they named this second son Percy Florence.

1820 Mary resumes writing. Prometheus Unbound is published. The Shelley family is blackmailed over the

mysterious Elena Adelaide.  That child dies in June.

1821 Shelley writes “A Defence of Poetry.” On February 23, Shelley’s good friend

John Keats dies of tuberculosis in Rome. Shelley writes Adonais in his memory.

1822 Allegra Byron dies in April. On May 12, Shelley receives his boat, the Don

Juan. He renames the boat Ariel. Mary has a miscarriage on June 16. Percy and Edward Williams sail to Leghorn on

July 1. On July 8, they set sail home to San Terenzo.

Sometime after July 8, Percy Shelley drowns in a sailing accident.  His body is found on July 18.

1822 Shelley is cremated near where his body

was found.

1823 Percy Shelley's father initially refuses to

support his grandson unless Mary gives him up; she refuses. 

A second edition of Frankenstein is published. 

In July, Mary and her son Percy return to England.

1824 A volume of Percy's unpublished poems is

published, a volume edited by Mary with a signed preface.  Mary then learns that Shelley's father will stop Percy Florence's allowance until she both stops publication and promises not to publish any more of her husband's writings in Sir Timothy's lifetime.  Mary reluctantly agrees.

1826 Mary's The Last Man is published. It is an apocalyptic story of the end of the

world, a type of story that would become a staple of science fiction.

It is also a thinly veiled portrait of both her husband and Lord Byron.

1826 After the publication of The Last Man,

Shelley’s father temporarily cuts off his support.

Shelley’s son by his first wife dies, and Percy Florence becomes Sir Timothy Shelley’s only male heir.

1838 Percy Shelley's father finally relents on

allowing his son's works to be published, although he does not want any mention made of his son's life in an introduction or biographical sketch.

1839 Mary's four-volume edition of Poetical Words of

Percy Bysshe Shelley is published; she dedicates the edition to Percy Florence.  She gets around the prohibition of Shelley's father with her preface and notes to the individual poems.

She also edits and has published her husband's Essays, Letters from Abroad, Translations and Fragments.

1841 Percy Florence graduates from Trinity

College.

1844 Percy Shelley's father dies; Percy Florence

inherits his estate and title.

1845 Someone claiming to be Lord Byron's son

tries unsuccessfully to blackmail Mary.

1851 Mary dies on February 1. Among her personal effects is found

Percy’s heart, wrapped in a copy of his poem “Adonais” (written for his dead friend John Keats).