Percy Bysshe Shelley
Percy Bysshe Shelley (4 August 1792 – 8 July 1822) was an English poet and prose writer associated with Romanticism. His writing included imaginative verse, drama and arguments for political and religious reform.[1][2]
Life and writing
Shelley was born near Horsham in Sussex. He attended Eton and then Oxford, from which he was expelled in 1811 after circulating The Necessity of Atheism with Thomas Jefferson Hogg. His early publications also included the Gothic novel Zastrozzi (1810).[1]
In 1812 he travelled to Ireland with his wife Harriet and her sister Eliza. In Dublin he published An Address to the Irish People, arguing for reform through peaceful means. He distributed copies himself, seeking an audience beyond established literary circles.[2]
His major verse works include Queen Mab (1813) and Prometheus Unbound (1820). He began a relationship with Mary Godwin in 1814; they married in 1816, following Harriet’s death. Mary became the author of Frankenstein. Shelley left England in 1818 and spent his remaining years in Italy, where his circle included Lord Byron and Leigh Hunt. He drowned during a sailing journey on 8 July 1822.[1]
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 Academy of American Poets, “Percy Bysshe Shelley”, biographical account. Accessed 10 October 2026.
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 Sinéad Fitzgibbon, “Percy Bysshe Shelley and revolutionary Ireland”, Wordsworth Grasmere, 26 March 2014. Accessed 10 October 2026.