Percy Bysshe Shelley
Person Born 1792 Died 1822
Categories: Poetry, Seriously Famous
Countries: Italy
Poet. Born at Field Place, near Horsham in Sussex. Had a habit of eloping with and then marrying 16 or 17 year olds: first Harriet Westbrook. When she, pregnant, drowned herself in the Serpentine Percy waited 2 weeks and then married Mary Godwin with whom he had been living for the previous 2 years.
Although he couldn't swim and often predicted that he would die by drowning, Shelley spent the summer of 1822 sailing on the Bay of Lerici. A storm threw him and others overboard. The bodies were washed ashore 10 days later and, in the presence of Lord Byron and Leigh Hunt, a cremation took place on the beach. Shelley's heart was saved and given to Mary who carried it with her all her life, taking it to her own grave (or their son kept it and took it to his grave, stories vary). Shelley's ashes were later buried in the Protestant cemetery in Rome.
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