On the occasion of the bicentenary of the death of Percy Shelley

By Alexander Lock, Curator, Archives and Trendy Manuscripts.

At this time, July 8, 2022, marks the bicentenary of the loss of life of romantic poet Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792-1822). One of the crucial politically radical Romantic poets, Shelley’s best-known works embrace “Ozymandias‘ (1818), ‘The mask of anarchy‘ (1819), and ‘Towards the lark‘ (1820).

Shelley died at sea, aged simply 29, on July 8, 1822. Earlier that month, Shelley had sailed in his ship, the Don Juan, from his house in San Terenzo to Livorno. On this journey he was accompanied by a younger boatman, Charles Vivian, and two shut buddies Edward Williams and naval officer Daniel Roberts. Shelley sailed to Livorno to satisfy Leigh Hunt and Lord Byron to develop their plans for publishing a brand new anti-establishment newspaper The liberal. After accompanying Hunt to his lodging in Pisa on July 8, Shelley, Williams and Vivian set sail for house. Inside hours, the Don Juan was caught in a violent storm and the three males had been misplaced at sea.

Shelley’s physique washed ashore close to Viareggio on July 18, 1822, and William’s physique was discovered the identical day three miles additional alongside the shore. Vivian’s stays had been found a couple of weeks later. In response to the good friend who discovered them, Edward John Trelawny, Shelley was recognized by the “Sophocles quantity” he had “in a single pocket and Keats’ poems within the different”. Initially buried in quicklime, Shelley and Williams had been exhumed and cremated on August 16, 1822 on the seaside close to Viareggio the place they had been discovered. It had been determined that Shelley’s stays could be buried close to John Keats within the Protestant cemetery in Rome, whereas Williams’ stays had been to be returned to England. As a way to facilitate the motion of their our bodies and to beat Italian quarantine legal guidelines governing the burial of our bodies washed from the ocean, it was determined that the lads could be cremated.

After the funeral, the ashes had been collected for burial by Edward Trelawney who had additionally taken a part of Shelley’s hair as a souvenir. He gave the hair and a part of the ashes as a souvenir to Claire Clairmont – Mary Shelley’s half-sister and Lord Byron’s lover who was staying with the Shelleys in San Terenzo. These objects would finally find yourself within the British Library.

A lock of Shelley’s hair and fragments of her ashes that belonged to Claire Clairmont, half-sister of Shelley’s spouse, Mary Shelley

A lock of Shelley’s hair and fragments of her ashes that belonged to Claire Clairmont, half-sister of Shelley’s spouse, Mary Shelley

Within the weeks main as much as his loss of life, Shelley had visions of drowning and loss of life. In a letter written simply after Shelley’s loss of life – now within the British Library as Ashley MS 5022 – his spouse Mary Shelley recounted how he dreamed that “the ocean was speeding in” and strangled her beneath the look of Edward Williams and his spouse Jane. like corpses. After her husband drowned, Mary started to marvel how her visions may have predicted the longer term.

To mark the bicentenary of Percy Bysshe Shelley’s loss of life, British Library curators have labored with poet Benjamin Zephaniah on a brand new Radio 4 program ‘Percy Shelley, Reformer and Radical’. Hosted by Zephaniah, the 2-part sequence brings a really private tackle Shelley’s work and the way he influenced his personal work and that of different poets. As a part of this recording, we confirmed Zephaniah the unique draft of ‘Masks of Anarchy’, Shelley’s annotated copy of ‘Queen Mab‘, in addition to the poet’s hair and ashes taken from his funeral pyre.

Curator Alexander Lock with Benjamin Zephaniah and the ashes of Percy Bysshe Shelley

Episode 1 aired Sunday July 3 and Episode 2 will air Sunday July 10, 4.30pm on BBC Radio 4. Episodes will probably be obtainable on line after broadcast.