Percy Bysshe Shelley 4 August 1792 – 8 July 1822

Major works are long visionary poems Approximately 50 readers as his audience, it is said that he made no more than 40 pounds from his writings.

His father was Sir Timothy Shelley, a Whig Member of Parliament, and his mother, a Sussex landowner Born at Field Place in Horsham, England The eldest of the children Received his early education at home On 10 April 1810, he matriculated at University College, Oxford Expelled from Oxford on 25 March 1811

After being expelled, he eloped to Scotland with the 16-year-old schoolgirl Harriet Westbrook Visited Ireland shortly afterward and wrote his Address to the Irish People On 28 July 1814, Shelley abandoned his family and ran away with Mary (also 16, later author of Frankenstein) Sailed to Europe, crossed France, and settled in Switzerland After six weeks they returned to England In the autumn of 1815 he wrote Alastor, or The Spirit of Solitude Shelley's estranged wife Harriet drowned herself and custody of the children was given to foster parents

Contact with Byron encouraged Shelley to write again (Julian and Maddalo) The Shelleys travelled around various Italian cities Spent the summer of 1819 writing a tragedy, The Cenci, in Livorno Inspired by the death of Keats, in 1821 Shelley wrote the elegy Adonais Shelley, Byron and Hunt wanted to establish a journal, that would be called The Liberal

On 8 July 1822 Shelley drowned A mass of evidence that Shelley may have been murdered Was cremated on the beach near Viareggio After his death The Courier gloated: "Shelley, the writer of some infidel poetry, has been drowned, now he knows whether there is a God or not.“ Shelley’s heart was later buried with the body of Sir Percy Florence Shelley, his son His grave bears the Latin inscription, Cor Cordium, and a few lines of "Ariel's Song" from Shakespeare's The Tempest Nothing of him that doth fade But doth suffer a sea-change Into something rich and strange.

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