Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792 - 1822)
Mary Shelley (1797 - 1851)
The Funeral of Shelley by Louis Édouard Fournier (1889)
July 8th 1822: Percy Shelley dies
On this day in 1822, famous English Romantic poet Percy Bysshe Shelley died aged 29 in a sailing accident in Lerici, Italy. Born in the country town of Broadbridge Heath in August 1792, the young writer displayed a great talent for prose and poetry, even publishing works as a teenager. In addition to being as being an author, Shelley was a radical political activist who advocated non-violent protest, vegetarianism, and sexual freedom; he disseminated his political literature through hot air balloons and paper boats. Shelley was even expelled from Oxford University in 1811 for supposedly penning an atheist pamphlet. He was married with children when he met his new love interest Mary, the daughter of political philosopher (and Shelley’s personal hero) William Godwin, and feminist author Mary Wollstonecraft. The two travelled Europe together, during which time Mary got pregnant, causing Shelley’s wife to sue for divorce. Percy and Mary were well acquainted with famed Romantic poet Lord Byron, and it was during a stay at his Switzerland home that he challenged his guests to write a horror story. This challenge resulted in Mary Shelley (though she and Percy did not officially marry until after this trip) penning Frankenstein. In the late 1810s, the Shelleys moved to Italy, travelling the country and living in various cities. It was a time of both great creative development and personal loss, as the couple lost two of their children, but Shelley produced his seminal Prometheus Unbound. His untimely death by drowning in 1822 brought an end to a career which, while little acknowledged in his lifetime, is celebrated today, with his poems like Ozymandias considered masterpieces of English poetry.
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