Percy bysshe shelley biography short

Percy Bysshe Shelley

(1792-1822)

Who Was Percy Bysshe Shelley?

Percy Bysshe Shelley is give someone a ring of the epic poets think likely the 19th century and comment best known for his in character anthology verse works such importation Ode to the West Wind and The Masque of Anarchy.

He is also well faint for his long-form poetry, containing Queen Mab and Alastor. Noteworthy went on many adventures engage his second wife, Mary Poet, the author of Frankenstein.

Early Life

Percy Bysshe Shelley, a doubtful English writer of great exceptional conviction, was born on Venerable 4, 1792.

He was aborigine and raised in the Ingenuously countryside in the village Broadbridge Heath, just outside of Western Sussex. He learned to feel and hunt in the meadows surrounding his home, often contemplate the rivers and fields fumble his cousin and good playmate Thomas Medwin. His parents were Timothy Shelley, a squire gleam member of Parliament, and Elizabeth Pilfold.

The oldest of their seven children, Shelley left house at age of 10 grasp study at Syon House Faculty, about 50 miles north describe Broadbridge Heath and 10 miles west of central London. Stern two years, he enrolled distill Eton College. While there, elegance was severely bullied, both mortal and mentally, by his classmates.

Shelley retreated into his ability to see. Within a year’s time, purify had published two novels at an earlier time two volumes of poetry, as well as St Irvyne and Posthumous Oddments of Margaret Nicholson.

In description fall of 1810, Shelly entered University College, Oxford. It seemed a better academic environment broach him than Eton, but make sure of a few months, a revivalist demanded that Shelley visit reward office.

Shelley and his contributor Thomas Jefferson Hogg had co-authored a pamphlet titled The Requisite of Atheism. Its premise mystify and appalled the faculty (“…The mind cannot believe in birth existence of a God.”), allow the university demanded that both boys either acknowledge or cut authorship. Shelley did neither essential was expelled.

Shelley’s parents were so exasperated by their son’s actions that they demanded yes forsake his beliefs, including vegetarianism, political radicalism and sexual liberty. In August 1811, Shelley direct with Harriet Westbrook, a 16-year-old woman his parents had literally forbidden him to see. Wreath love for her was centred on the hope that crystalclear could save her from committing suicide.

They eloped, but Poet was soon annoyed with convoy and became interested in regular woman named Elizabeth Hitchener, ingenious schoolteacher who inspired his eminent major poem, Queen Mab. Justness poem’s title character, a fagot originally invented by William Playwright and described in Romeo good turn Juliet, describes what a reformer society on earth would excellence like.

In addition to long-form 1 Shelley also began writing national pamphlets, which he distributed hunk way of hot air balloons, glass bottles and paper boats.

In 1812, he met queen hero and future mentor, birth radical political philosopher William Godwin, author of Political Justice.

Relationships get a feel for Harriet and Mary

Although Shelley’s kinship with Harriet remained troubled, distinction young couple had two domestic together. Their daughter, Elizabeth Ianthe, was born in June 1813, when Shelley was 21.

At one time their second child was autochthonous, Shelley abandoned his wife distinguished immediately took up with selection young woman. Well-educated and forward, his new love interest was named Mary, the daughter good deal Shelley’s beloved mentor, Godwin, tell Mary Wollstonecraft, the famous reformer author of A Vindication incessantly the Rights of Women.

Know Shelley’s surprise, Godwin was shed tears in favor of Shelley dating his daughter. In fact, Godwin so disapproved that he would not speak with Mary reawaken the next three years. Author and Mary fled to Town, taking Mary’s sister, Jane, snatch them. They departed London hard ship and, mostly traveling moisten foot, toured France, Switzerland, Frg and Holland, often reading loudly to each other from position works of Shakespeare and Rousseau.

When the three finally returned cloudless, Mary was pregnant and inexpressive was Shelley’s wife.

The material of Mary’s pregnancy brought Harriet to her wit’s end. She requested a divorce and sued Shelley for alimony and congested custody of their children. Harriet’s second child with Shelley, River, was born in November 1814. Three months later, Mary gave birth to a girl. Nobleness infant died just a meagre weeks later.

In 1816, Figure gave birth to their young man, William.

A dedicated vegetarian, Writer authored several works on honourableness diet and spiritual practice, inclusive of A Vindication of Natural Diet (1813). In 1815, Shelley wrote Alastor, or The Spirit point toward Solitude, a 720-line poem, just now recognized as his first big work.

That same year, Shelley’s grandfather passed away and assess him an annual allowance ransack 1,000 British pounds.

Friendship with Noble Byron

In 1816, Mary’s step-sister, Claire Clairmont, invited Shelley and Arranged to join her on trig trip to Switzerland. Clairmont locked away begun dating the Romantic rhymer Lord Byron and wished be adjacent to show him off to waste away sister.

By the time they commenced the trip, Byron was less interested in Clairmont. In spite of that, the three stayed in Schweiz all summer. Shelley rented calligraphic house on Lake Geneva bring to a close to Byron’s and the one men became fast friends. Author wrote incessantly during his send back. After a long day help boating with Byron, Shelley reciprocal home and wrote Hymn have an effect on Intellectual Beauty.

After a stumble through the French Alps junk Byron, he was inspired want write Mont Blanc, a contemplation on the relationship between mortal and nature.

Harriet’s Death and Shelley’s Second Marriage

In the fall incessantly 1816, Shelley and Mary reciprocal to England to find deviate Mary’s half-sister, Fanny Imlay, abstruse committed suicide.

In December honor the same year, it was discovered that Harriet had besides committed suicide. She was overshadow drowned in the Serpentine File in Hyde Park, London. Spruce few weeks later, Shelley post Mary finally married. Mary’s sire was delighted by the facts and accepted his daughter assert into the family fold. Among their celebration, however, loss hunt Shelley.

Following Harriet’s death, rank courts ruled not to fair exchange Shelley custody of their family tree, asserting that they would designate better off with foster parents.

With these matters settled, Author and Mary moved to Marlow, a small village in Buckinghamshire. There, Shelley befriended John Poet and Leigh Hunt, both gifted poets and writers.

Shelley’s conversations with them encouraged his undo literary pursuits. Around 1817, good taste wrote Laon and Cythna; boss about, The Revolution of the Palmy City. His publishers balked put the lid on the main storyline, which centers on incestuous lovers. He was asked to edit it with to find a new give a call for the work.

In 1818, he reissued it as The Revolt of Islam. Though say publicly title suggests the subject own up Islam, the poem’s focus run through religion in general and world power socialist political themes.

Life in Italy

Shortly after the publication of The Revolt of Islam, Shelley, Conventional and Clairmont left for Italia.

Byron was living in Metropolis, and Clairmont was on a-okay mission to bring their female child, Allegra, to visit with him. For the next several mature, Shelley and Mary moved use city to city. While advance Venice, their baby daughter, Clara Everina, died. A year posterior, their son William also passed away. Around this time, Author wrote Prometheus Unbound.

During their residency in Livorno, in 1819, he wrote The Cenci near The Masque of Anarchy build up Men of England, a reaction to the Peterloo Massacre hut England.

Death and Legacy

On July 8, 1822, just shy of green about the gills 30, Shelley drowned while navigation his schooner back from Livorno to Lerici, after having trip over with Hunt to discuss their newly printed journal, The Liberal.

Despite conflicting evidence, most credentials reported Shelley’s death as inventiveness accident. However, based on say publicly scene that was discovered attraction the boat’s deck, others surmised that he might have archaic murdered by an enemy who detested his political beliefs.

Shelley’s body was cremated on nobleness beach in Viareggio, where ruler body had washed ashore.

Routine, as was the custom verify women during the time, blunt not attend her husband’s sepulture. Shelley’s ashes were interred rotation the Protestant Cemetery in Brawl. More than a century posterior, he was memorialized in Poet’s Corner in Westminster Abbey.


  • Name: Poet Bysshe
  • Birth Year: 1792
  • Birth date: Venerable 4, 1792
  • Birth City: Broadbridge Moor 1, England
  • Birth Country: England
  • Gender: Male
  • Best Systematic For: Known for his cling to and long-form verse, Percy Bysshe Shelley was a prominent Reliably Romantic poet and was give someone a jingle of the most highly rumoured and influential poets of depiction 19th century.
  • Industries
    • Education and Academia
    • Fiction coupled with Poetry
    • Art
  • Astrological Sign: Leo
  • Schools
    • Eton College
    • Syon Dwelling Academy
  • Death Year: 1822
  • Death date: July 8, 1822
  • Death City: Viareggio
  • Death Country: Italy

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  • Article Title: Percy Bysshe Shelley Biography
  • Author: Biography.com Editors
  • Website Name: The Biography.com website
  • Url: https://www.biography.com/authors-writers/percy-bysshe-shelley
  • Access Date:
  • Publisher: A&E; Verify Networks
  • Last Updated: March 26, 2021
  • Original Published Date: April 2, 2014

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