1. Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792-1822) Born in Sussex into a wealthy landowning family. Son of an MP. Eldest of six children. 1804: Attends Eton. Called “mad Shelley” by his classmates. 1810: Oxford University; friendship with Hogg. Immerses himself in philosophy; becomes vegetarian. 1811: Expelled from Oxford for publishing and circulating his pamphlet “The Necessity of Atheism.”

2. Percy Bysshe Shelley 1811: Elopes with 16yr. old Harriet Westbrook. 1812: In Ireland, urges Catholic emancipation and justice for the poor. Writes Queen Mab. Meets William Godwin. 1814: Elopes with Mary, Godwin and Wollstonecraft’s daughter. Writes Alastor. 1816: Geneva circle with Byron. Begins Prometheus Unbound. Mary writes Frankenstein. Harriet drowns herself. Friendship with Leigh Hunt editor of The Examiner. Meets John Keats.

3. Shelley: Major Works 1816-17: “Hymn to Intellectual Beauty”; “Mont Blanc” 1819: Completes Prometheus Unbound; The Cenci; The Mask of Anarchy about the Peterloo Massacre; A Philosophical View of Reform; Ode to the West Wind. 1820-22: To a Sky-Lark; Adonais (an elegy for Keats.) Defence of Poetry (published posthumously in 1840); The Triumph of Life. 1822: Drowns at sea at the age of 29.