The Byron-Shelley Circle

• In 1814, Mary met Percy Shelley, who was one of the leading poets of the romantic movement.
• Percy Shelley's father was an MP given the title of baronet.
• Percy Shelley was an admirer of Godwin, and was also a controversial figure himself, being radical in politics, anti-royalist, and vegetarian.
• Percy Shelley was expelled from Oxford university in 1811 for writing a pamphlet titled The Necessity of Atheism.
• In the spring of 1814, Percy Shelley eloped with 16-year-old Harriet Westbrook, but they separated before meeting Mary in 1814.
• In 1814, Percy Shelley eloped with Mary in Switzerland, taking Jane (later Claire) Clairmont, Mary's 15-year-old stepsister with them.
• Harriet Shelley, Percy Shelley's first wife, drowned herself in 1816, and Mary and Percy were free to marry.
• Mary's half-sister Fanny Imlay also committed suicide in 1816.
• Percy Shelley spent the summer of 1816 in Geneva, going to be with lord Byron for Claire Clairmont.
• Lord Byron was Percy Shelley's friend and was also a controversial figure, being radical in politics, anti-royalist, and vegetarian.
• Lord Byron and Claire Clairmont had a daughter in 1817.
• Percy Shelley and Mary settled permanently in Italy in 1818, where they had numerous children, but their first child died soon after birth in 1815, their son William was born in 1816, but died in 1819, and their fourth child, Percy, born in 1819 survived childhood.
• Mary Shelley's first book, Frankenstein, was published in London in 1819 while they lived in Pisa in Italy.
• Percy Shelley's most creative and productive period was from 1816 to 1822, producing several of his best-known works.
• In the spring of 1822, Percy Shelley and Mary moved to the Bay of Lerici with a series of events: Mary suffered a serious miscarriage, Claire Clairmont's child with Byron died, Shelley saw a ghost of a child at sea, and in August, returning by boat from a visit to Byron across the bay, Shelley drowned at 29 years old.
• For eight years from 1814-1822, Mary lived at the heart of England’s greatest writers, under the guidance of Shelley and Byron, her education advancing by reading widely and constantly, but dealing with a great deal of unhappiness.
• Mary resented Byron's constant presence, lost her half sister and her stepsisters only child, lost her husband and 3 of her four children.