Person    | Male  Born 4/8/1792  Died 8/7/1822

Percy Bysshe Shelley

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.

Comments are provided by Facebook, please ensure you are signed in here to see them

This section lists the memorials where the subject on this page is commemorated:
Percy Bysshe Shelley

Commemorated ati

Percy & Mary Shelley

After their elopement in July 1814 the Shelleys lived here with Claire Clairm...

Read More

Percy Shelley - SE1 - blue

British History Online: "In 1932 the London County Council erected a memorial...

Read More

Percy Shelley - SE1 - Southwark

Percy Bysshe Shelley lived at No. 26 Nelson Square which formerly stood on a ...

Read More

Percy Shelley - W1

Shelley lodged here after he was expelled from Oxford.

Read More

Somers Town Mural

This mural was commissioned by the GLC in 1980 and moved to this site by St P...

Read More

Show all 6

Other Subjects

George MacDonald

George MacDonald

Poet, novelist and Christian minister. Born Aberdeenshire. Works include: 'At the Back of the North Wind', 'Lilith'. Influenced: C. S. Lewis, G. K. Chesterton, W. H. Auden, Tolkien. Died at Ashtead...

Person, Literature, Poetry, Religion, Scotland

2 memorials
Shropshire Lad

Shropshire Lad

A cycle of sixty-three poems by A. E. Housman. Published in 1896, most were written when Housman was unwell and depressed. The poems, nostalgic and evocative of the English "blue remembered hills",...

Media, Poetry

2 memorials
John Donne

John Donne

Poet and clergyman.  Born in Bread Street into a literate Catholic family (connected to Sir Thomas More) at a time when the Catholic religion was banned. Appointed private secretary to Sir Thomas E...

Person, Poetry

1 memorial
Rabindranath Tagore

Rabindranath Tagore

Bengali poet and philosopher. First non-European Nobel Laureate. Born into a large, rich, assimilated family which had made its fortune from the East India Company.  He read law at University Colle...

Person, Poetry, Bengal, India

3 memorials
Rudyard Kipling

Rudyard Kipling

Poet and story writer. Born: Bombay, India. Died: London. See Waterloo Free Buffet. 2021: The Guardian reported some updates to English Heritage's information on Kipling: "While his children’s sto...

Person, Literature, Poetry, Race Issues, Seriously Famous, India

2 memorials

Previously viewed

John Rogers

John Rogers

Protestant martyr burned at Smithfield. The first of the 'Marian Martyrs'.

Person, Execution, Religion

1 memorial