Percy Bysshe Shelley

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Standard Name: Shelley, Percy Bysshe
PBS is one of the six major (male) English Romantic poets.
Percy Bysshe Shelley, in an engraving by William Finden from a head-and-shoulders portrait by Amelia Curran, 1819. Shelley is gazing slightly to the left, wearing a dark jacket over a white open-necked shirt, and holding a quill. His signature is reproduced below.

Connections

Connections Author name Excerpt
Birth Evelyn Sharp
One brother died before Evelyn was born, and another during the family's year of foreign travel. She had two younger brothers. She called her birthday a fine revolutionary anniversary because it was also the birthday...
Cultural formation Algernon Charles Swinburne
ACS came from a noble family. His maternal grandparents were George, third earl of Ashburnham and his wife (who was born Lady Charlotte Percy ). His paternal grandfather, Sir John Edward Swinburne , owned an...
Cultural formation Anna Steele
Her heritage was English: her mother 's family name, Michell, was said to derive from a village near St Columb Major in Cornwall, now spelled Mitchell. Both sides of Steel's family were presumably white...
Cultural formation Robert Browning
The metaphysical themes of RB 's verse reflect his eclectic engagement with systems of belief: raised by a Nonconformist mother, he became an atheist as a consequence of reading Shelley
Batho, Edith C., and Bonamy Dobree. The Victorians and After: 1830-1914. Cresset Press, 1962.
31
before finally turning to...
Dedications Bessie Rayner Parkes
BRP published the long philosophical and historical poem Gabriel, dedicated to the memory of Percy Bysshe Shelley .
Thesing, William B., editor. Dictionary of Literary Biography 240. Gale Research, 2001.
240: 186
Education Jean Rhys
JR attended the local Catholic convent school where whites were in the minority. Most of the girls were coloured (of mixed blood). Mother Mount Calvary, the Superior of the convent, gave her extra instruction in...
Education Anna Swanwick
At home her mother had read to her daughters, while they sewed, Greek and Roman history, and writers like Pope , and Cowper . At four Anna could recite long passages from Milton 's L'Allegro...
Education Marie Corelli
Looking back on her early education, MC wrote I managed to develop into a curiously determined independent little personality, with ideas and opinions more suited to some clever young man. . . . I instinctively...
Education Freya Stark
Family friends sympathetic to Freya's feelings of entrapment at Dronero sent her gifts of books: she was especially passionate about Shakespeare , Sir Walter Scott , Byron , Keats , Kipling , Shelley , Wordsworth
Education Bessie Rayner Parkes
BRP taught herself to read. By the age of seven she had completed all of Scott 's novels.
Crawford, Anne, editor. The Europa Biographical Dictionary of British Women. Europa Publications, 1983.
Lowndes, Marie Belloc. I, Too, Have Lived in Arcadia. Macmillan, 1941.
265
She learnt both French and German with remarkable ease.
Lowndes, Marie Belloc. I, Too, Have Lived in Arcadia. Macmillan, 1941.
265
She developed a passionate admiration, and...
Education Carola Oman
When CO was eight her father took her on a first visit to the Bodleian Library ; she came home and asked for a bookcase for her next birthday. At this age she worshippedShelley
Education Florence Dixie
Lady Florence was at first educated at home in Scotland. After a first, unsuccessful attempt to place her in a convent she had, in France, an Irish Catholic governess whom she calls Miss O'Leary...
Education Christina Rossetti
Christina and her siblings were educated by their mother , in reading, writing, the Bible and rudimentary French. The boys were sent to school when they were seven, while the girls continued at home. Their...
Education Rumer Godden
In India, RG later wrote, it was thought there were five things a girl needed to know if she were to take her place in any sort of society: to dance, to play the...
Education Jean Rhys
At a very young age, JR imagined that God was a book. She was so slow to read that her parents were concerned, but then suddenly found herself able to read even the longer words...

Timeline

February 1793: William Godwin published his Enquiry Concerning...

Writing climate item

February 1793

William Godwin published his Enquiry Concerning Political Justice, a radical text which was highly influential, not least for Godwin's future son-in-law Percy Bysshe Shelley .
Solo: Search Oxford University Libraries Online. 18 July 2011, http://solo.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/primo_library/libweb/action/search.do?vid=OXVU1&fromLogin=true&reset_config=true.
Butler, Marilyn, editor. Burke, Paine, Godwin, and the Revolution Controversy. Cambridge University Press, 1984.
149

1798: Thomas Robert Malthus anonymously published...

Building item

1798

Thomas Robert Malthus anonymously published in LondonAn Essay on the Principle of Population, which later attached his name to the birth control movement.
Tannahill, Reay. Sex in History. Stein and Day, 1980.
406
Fryer, Peter. The Birth Controllers. Secker and Warburg, 1965.
70
Graham, Kenneth W. “Beckford, Godwin, Austen, and the Divisive 1790s”. Persuasions, Vol.
24
, 2002, pp. 33-46.
37
O’Brien, Karen. Women and Enlightenment in Eighteenth-Century Britain. Cambridge University Press, 2009.
228-9
Shapin, Steven. “Libel on the Human Race”. London Review of Books, Vol.
36
, No. 11, 5 June 2015, pp. 26-9.

1811: John Frank Newton published The Return to...

Building item

1811

John Frank Newton published The Return to Nature, or a Defence of the Vegetable Regimen.
Perkins, David. Romanticism and Animal Rights. Cambridge University Press, 2003.
117
Solo: Search Oxford University Libraries Online. 18 July 2011, http://solo.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/primo_library/libweb/action/search.do?vid=OXVU1&fromLogin=true&reset_config=true.

10 April 1815: The largest volcanic eruption in modern times,...

National or international item

10 April 1815

The largest volcanic eruption in modern times, that of Mount Tambora in what is now Indonesia, buried an entire civilization. It had twice the magnitude of the later Krakatoa eruption.
Sample, Ian. “Scientists find lost civilisation”. Guardian Unlimited, 1 Mar. 2006.
Encyclopædia Britannica Online. http://www.britannica.com/.
Jones, Thomas, editor. “Awfully Present”. London Review of Books, Vol.
37
, No. 3, 5 Feb. 2015, pp. 27-8.
27

9 June 1817: Knitter Jeremiah Brandreth led an uprising...

National or international item

9 June 1817

Knitter Jeremiah Brandreth led an uprising of 300 men, who marched from Pentridge in Derbyshire to nearby Nottingham.
Spartacus Educational. 28 Feb. 2003, http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/.

12 August 1822: The new Marquess of Londonderry, better known...

National or international item

12 August 1822

The new Marquess of Londonderry, better known as Viscount Castlereagh , killed himself: he was seen as the political author of Wellington 's victories and of repressive policies at home.
Haydn, Joseph. Haydn’s Dictionary of Dates and Universal Information. Editor Vincent, Benjamin, 23rd ed., Ward, Lock, 1904.
1282

1886: Eleanor Marx published the socialist polemic...

Women writers item

1886

Eleanor Marx published the socialist polemic The Woman Question with her partner Edward Aveling .
Spartacus Educational. 28 Feb. 2003, http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/.
British Library Catalogue. http://explore.bl.uk/primo_library/libweb/action/search.do?dscnt=0&tab=local_tab&dstmp=1489778087340&vid=BLVU1&mode=Basic&fromLo.

Texts

Shelley, Percy Bysshe. A Selection from the Poems of Percy Bysshe Shelley. Editor Blind, Mathilde, B. Tauchnitz, 1872.
Shelley, Percy Bysshe. Adonais. With the types of Didot, 1821.
Shelley, Percy Bysshe. Alastor. S. Hamilton, 1816.
Shelley, Percy Bysshe. Epipsychidion. C. and J. Ollier, 1821.
Shelley, Percy Bysshe. Essays, Letters from Abroad, Translations and Fragments. Editor Shelley, Mary, Edward Moxon, 1840, 2 vols.
Shelley, Mary, and Percy Bysshe Shelley. History of a Six Weeks’ Tour Through a Part of France, Switzerland, Germany and Holland. T. Hookham and C. and J. Ollier, 1817.
Browning, Robert, and Percy Bysshe Shelley. “Introductory Essay”. Letters of Percy Bysshe Shelley, Edward Moxon, 1852.
Shelley, Percy Bysshe. “Introductory Note to The Revolt of IslamThe Revolt of Islam.
Shelley, Percy Bysshe. Poetical Works of Shelley. Editors Hutchinson, Thomas and Geoffrey Maurice Matthews, Oxford University Press, 1970.
Shelley, Percy Bysshe, and Thomas Jefferson Hogg. Posthumous Fragments of Margaret Nicholson. J. Munday, 1810.
Shelley, Percy Bysshe. Posthumous Poems. Editor Shelley, Mary, John and Henry L. Hunt, 1824.
Shelley, Percy Bysshe. Prometheus Unbound. C. and J. Ollier, 1820.
Shelley, Percy Bysshe. Queen Mab. P. B. Shelley, 1813.
Shelley, Percy Bysshe. The Cenci. C. and J. Ollier, 1819.
Shelley, Percy Bysshe. The Necessity of Atheism. C and W. Phillips, 1811.
Shelley, Percy Bysshe. The Revolt of Islam. Sherwood, Neely, and Jones; C. and J. Ollier, 1818.
Plato,. The Symposium on Love. Translator Shelley, Percy Bysshe, Peter Pauper Press.
Shelley, Percy Bysshe. “When the Lamp is Shattered”. The Literature Network: Percy Bysshe Shelley.
Shelley, Percy Bysshe. Zastrozzi. G. Wilkie and J. Robinson, 1810.