Young Romantics: The Shelleys, Byron and Other Tangled Lives (57 page)

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34
James Rieger is among those who think that Shelley should be accorded the status of
Frankenstein
’s secondary author, whereas both Anne Mellor and Johanna Smith have characterised his alterations as patriarchal. See James Rieger, ‘Introduction’ in Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley,
Frankenstein
, pp.xi-xxvii; Anne K. Mellor,
Mary Shelley: Her Life, Her Fiction, Her Monsters
and Johanna M. Smith, ‘ ‘‘Hideous Progenies’’: Texts of
Frankenstein
’, in
Texts and Textuality: Textual Instability, Theory and Interpretation
, ed. Philip Cohen, pp.121–40. Shelley’s annotations are visible in both
The Frankenstein Notebooks
and in Charles Robinson’s new edition of the novel:
The Original Frankenstein
.
35
Conversations of Lord Byron
, p.194.
36
Quoted by David Erdman in
Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage: A Critical, Composite Edition
, p.164.
37
Ernest J. Lovell, ed.,
Lady Blessington’s Conversations of Lord Byron
, p.53.
38
S. C. Djabri and J. Knight, eds.,
The Letters of Bysshe and Timothy Shelley and other documents
, p.121.
39
Fanny Imlay to Mary Shelley, 29/07/1816.
The Clairmont Correspondence
, I, 55.
40
Percy Shelley to Lord Byron, 20/11/1816.
Shelley and his Circle
, ed. Donald Reiman et al, V, 16–17.
41
The Examiner
, 453 (01/09/1816), 545.
42
John Keats to Charles Cowden Clarke, 09/10/1816.
Keats Letters
, ed. Hyder Rollins, I, 113.
43
Andrew Motion,
Keats,
p.98.
44
Charles and Mary Cowden Clarke,
Recollections of Writers
p.135.
45
The Diary of Benjamin Robert Haydon
, II, 46, 57, 63, 68.
46
Benjamin Haydon to Leigh Hunt, 31/12/1817. Luther Brewer Leigh Hunt Collection.  MsLH416h7.
47
The Diary of Benjamin Robert Haydon
, II, 83.
48
See Alan Lang Strout, ‘Knights of the Burning Epistle’, pp.93–5.
49
Haydon, annotations in Medwin’s
Conversations with Lord Byron
, the Roe-Byron Collection, Newstead Abbey, quoted by Duncan Gray and Violet W. Walker in ‘Benjamin Robert Haydon on Byron and Others’, pp. 24–5.
50
John Reynolds to Benjamin Haydon, 22/11/1816.
Keats Letters
, I, 119.
51
The Examiner
, 466 (01/12/1816), 761–2.
52
Claire Clairmont to Mary Shelley, 20/09/1816.
The Clairmont Correspondence
, I, 73.
53
The Journals of Mary Shelley
, I, 138.
54
Fanny Imlay to Mary Shelley, 03/10/1816.
The Clairmont Correspondence
, I, 80–3.
55
Fanny Imlay suicide note, 09/10/1816.
The Clairmont Correspondence
, I, 86.
56
Fanny’s death has been the cause of much speculation, most recently by Janet Todd, who has suggested that Fanny may have met Shelley on her way to Swansea.  See Janet Todd,
Death and the Maidens
pp.223–6.
57
Fanny Imlay to Mary Shelley, 29/07/1816.
The Clairmont Correspondence
, I, 56.
58
Fanny Imlay to Mary Shelley, 26/09/1816.
The Clairmont Correspondence
, I, 74.
59
Fanny Imlay to William Godwin, 08/10/1816.
The Clairmont Correspondence
, I, 85.
60
The Journals of Mary Shelley
, I, 141.
61
Silsbee Collection. Box 7, file 2.
62
Mary Shelley to Percy Shelley, 05/12/1816.
MWS
Letters
, I, 22.
63
Claire Clairmont to Lord Byron, 06/10/1816.
The Clairmont Correspondence
, I, 84.
64
Claire Clairmont to Lord Byron,  19/11/1816.
The Clairmont Correspondence
, I, 92.
65
Percy Shelley to Leigh Hunt, 08/12/1816.
PBS Letters
, I, 517–8.
66
The Journals of Mary Shelley
, I, 150.
67
Shelley made enquiries on this subject and told Mary that Harriet had taken up with a groom named ‘Mr Smith’, although Claire later claimed that Harriet’s lover was a ‘Colonel Ryan’.  Two recent studies of the group have however suggested that Shelley himself may have been the father of Harriet’s child (see Nicholas Roe,
Fiery Heart
, p.281 and Janet Todd,
Death and the Maidens
, pp.244–5). Both arguments are based on a diary entry by Henry Crabb Robinson: ‘It is singular that it was not suggested to Basil Montagu by Shelley that he was not the father of his wife’s child. Mrs Godwin had stated this to be as a fact. Basil Montagu thinks it improbable’ (
Henry Crabb Robinson on Books and their Writers
, I, 211). As Nicholas Roe notes, Mrs Godwin had ‘reason to cast Harriet in a bad light’ (p.394) and, although it is the case that Shelley made some attempt to see Harriet in the months before her death, there is little other evidence to support Robinson’s insinuation. None of the primary sources gives any indication that a meeting between Shelley and Harriet took place in the spring of 1816 (the approximate time of the unborn baby’s conception); the Westbrooks never attempted to suggest that Shelley was the father of Harriet’s child, even though doing so would have strengthened their court case significantly; and Harriet’s suicide increases the likelihood that her pregnancy was illegitimate. Claire refuted the suggestion that Harriet was pregnant with Shelley’s child in conversations with Edward Silsbee, at a time when she was being indiscreet on a number of related topics. Silsbee Collection. Box 7, file 4.
68
Harriet Shelley suicide note, 07/12/1816.
Shelley and his Circle
, IV, 805–6.
69
Percy Shelley to Mary Shelley, 16/12/1816.
PBS Letters
, I, 520.
70
Percy Shelley to Claire Clairmont, 30/12/1816.
Shelley and his Circle
, V, 31.

Chapter Four: Children

 
1
Mary Shelley to Lord Byron, 13/01/1817.
MWS
Letters
, I, 26.
2
Percy Shelley to Lord Byron, 17/01/1817.
Shelley and his Circle
, V, 82.
3
Byron to Douglas Kinnaird, 20/01/1817.
Byron’s Letters and Journals
, V, 162.
4
Haydon, annotations in Medwin’s
Conversations with Lord Byron
, quoted in ‘Benjamin Robert Haydon on Byron and Others’, p.23.
5
For Haydon’s account of this evening see
The Diary of Benjamin Robert Haydon
, II, 80–9.
6
The Life and Labours of Vincent Novello,
pp.13–14.
7
Charles Lamb, ‘A Chapter on Ears’, in
Elia and the Last Essays of Elia
, p.48.
8
Shelley,
Prose
, ed. E.B. Murray, pp.173–4.
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