She ran away from home for him. She bore him two children. When he abandoned her, she pleaded with him for another chance. Years later, she committed suicide - and he missed no chance to tarnish her reputation even after her death. How is it possible that this sensitive poet turned out to be so soulless?
Percy Shelley went down in history as an outstanding poet - one of the leading representatives of English Romanticism. Some also know him as the husband of Mary née Godwin, author of Frankenstein . However, before he became famous and became involved with the precursor of the horror novel, he established himself as a staunch enemy of traditional morality:atheist, anarchist and opponent of marriage . His contemporaries considered him a social outcast; and while most of the artist's "scandalous" behavior can be blamed for excessive prudishness, the way he treated his first wife will shock many even today.
"A hasty and emotionless relationship"
Shelley's chosen one, Harriet Westbrook, was sixteen years old when she ran away with him from home in 1811. Percy did not see himself as husband, but eventually he was convinced of the wedding. As Charlotte Gordon writes in her book "Rebels" :
He got married believing he had a glorious mission to fulfill - to free sixteen-year-old Harriet Westbrook from her stuffy, conventional home. Harriet did not seem enslaved, not before meeting Shelley, at least, but she had fled north with him. They only got married because she insisted.
No wonder that such a marriage did not last long. "I had the impression that the dead and living body were joined together in a disgusting, monstrous communion" - Soon wrote in a letter to a friend of the poet. He lasted less than two years. While Harriet was pregnant with his second child, he abandoned her and embarked on a new affair. His wife pleaded with him for another chance. But he shuddered at the mere thought - going back to Harriet would be a step back. He wanted to free himself from his old life, "says Gordon.
Percy Shelley quickly became disappointed in his marriage - he left his wife before two years had passed.
Soon after, Shelley announced to Harriet that she was going away for good. He told his new love, Mary Godwin, that his marriage was a fiction that made him feel unhappy. He also suggested that his wife was cheating on him and speculated that he might not be the father of her children at all.
"She descended into prostitution"
He did not become interested in his former partner until the tragedy happened. In December 1816, Harriet's body was fished from Lake Serpentine. She was heavily pregnant. Upon hearing of her suicide, Percy remembered his two children. Charlotte Gordon in the book "Rebels" refers:
Three-year-old Ianthe and two-year-old Charles hadn't piqued his interest when their mother was alive, but now he traveled back and forth to London demanding that his children be taken into his care. Harriet's mourning parents, the Westbrook family, were terrified. How did this wild-eyed madman who ruined their daughter's life dare to demand children he hardly knew?
Opposition, however, always spurred Shelley to be effective. When it became clear that the Westbrooks were not backing down, Shelley launched a regular campaign (...). He was sending letter after letter to Harriet's influential friends and relatives while plotting various plans, some of which were based on kidnapping the children.
It did not take long for the case to be brought to court. There, a desperate Shelley gave up the last bit of decency. "Harriet is already dead, but she was not without fault - when she killed herself, she was pregnant," he said. Although there was a suspicion that he himself might be the father of her child (Gordon writes that he visited London alone a few months before the death of his ex-wife), he accused her of ... of going astray. Author of "Rebels" says:
About six weeks before she died, she disappeared without a trace. There were rumors that she had become a whore, the story of which Shelley brought to trial, declaring that Harriet descended into prostitution until she met a man named Smith. After he left her, she killed herself. ” .
It seems that it was too much even for the judge. "In passing his verdict, he scolded him and rejected his claims, which was extremely unusual for the nineteenth century, an era in which the father's right to children was rarely questioned," emphasizes Gordon. The sentence was not challenged, and Shelley's friends managed to dissuade him from kidnapping the babies. Neither Ianthe nor Charles ever saw their father again.
Source:
Trivia is the essence of our website. Short materials devoted to interesting anecdotes, surprising details from the past, strange news from the old press. Reading that will take you no more than 3 minutes, based on single sources. This particular material is based on the book:
- Charlotte Gordon, Rebels. The amazing life of Mary Wollstonecraft and her daughter Mary Shelley , 2019 Poznań Publishing House.