Young Romantics: The Shelleys, Byron and Other Tangled Lives (56 page)

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29
Mayne,
Life and Letters of Lady Byron
, p.181.
30
British Library. MS Ashley 906.
31
Leigh Hunt to Lord Byron, 30/10/1815. Rowland E. Prothero, ed.,
The Works of Lord Byron: Letters and Journals
, III, 418.
32
Leigh Hunt,
The Story of Rimini
, p.47.
33
Mary Shelley, ed.,
Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley
(1839), I, 141.
34
Thomas Love Peacock,
Memoirs of Shelley
, p.59.
35
Memoirs of Shelley
, p.57.
36
The literary critic Marilyn Butler, whose studies of both Peacock and Shelley revolutionised critical approaches to their work, has written that ‘it was the live debate with Shelley that brought home to Peacock the literary potential of disputation. Each was just what the other had so far lacked: a really intelligent companion, another writer of the same generation, someone to sympathise and argue with.’  See Marilyn Butler,
Peacock Displayed: A Satirist in his Context
, pp.37–8.
37
Thomas Love Peacock,
The Genius of the Thames
, p.29.
38
Charles Clairmont to Claire Clairmont, 13–20/09/1815.
The Clairmont Correspondence
, I, 14–15.
39
Charles Clairmont to Claire Clairmont, 13/20/09/1815.
The Clairmont Correspondence
, I, 15.
40
Percy Shelley,
Poetry and Prose
, ed. Donald Reiman and Neil Fraistat. Unless otherwise stated, all quotations from Shelley’s poetry are taken from this edition.
41
The Journals of Mary Shelley
, I, 25.

Chapter Three: Sisters

 
1
Claire Clairmont to Fanny Imlay,  28/05/1815.
The Clairmont Correspondence
, I, 9.
2
Claire Clairmont to Mary Shelley, 02/06/1835.
The Clairmont Correspondence
, II, 319.
3
The Story of Rimini
, pp.77–8.
4
William Hazlitt to Leigh Hunt, 15/02/1816.
The Letters of William Hazlitt
, ed. Herschel Sykes, p.153.
5
Benjamin Haydon to Leigh Hunt, 21/02/1816. British Library. MS Add. 37219, ff. 155–6.
6
Charles Lamb to Leigh Hunt, 24/02/1816. Luther Brewer Leigh Hunt Collection, University of Iowa Libraries.  MSLL21h.no.3.
7
British Lady’s Magazine
(April 1816) and
Eclectic Review
(April 1816) in
The Romantics Reviewed, Part C
, I, 240–2 and 324.
8
Charles Cowden Clarke,
An Address to that Quarterly Reviewer who touched upon Mr Leigh Hunt’s
Story of Rimini. For Clarke’s authorship of the pamphlet see John Barnard, ‘Leigh Hunt and Charles Cowden Clarke, 1812–1818’.
9
Blackwood’s
Edinburgh Magazine
(July 1818) in
The Romantics Reviewed
, Part C, I, 87.
10
The Examiner
, 548 (28/06/1818), 411.
11
At some point Bess appears also to have published a book of stories for children, entitled
New Tales for Young Readers
. This work, like many children’s books of the period, does not appear in library catalogues, and is unlikely to have survived. Bess told the Royal Literary Fund she thought her first work was published by the firm of ‘Broadway and Kirby’ in 1818, although she was not entirely sure, and in 1822
The Monthly Review
published a brief notice of a volume entitled
New Tales for Young Readers, by a Lady
, published by ‘Bowdery and Kirby’. Bess may have mistaken the original publication date when she put together her submission to the Royal Literary Fund  (which formed part of a request for financial assistance, made in the late 1850s), or
The Monthly Review
’s notice may refer to a subsequent edition of her book.
The Monthly Review
professed itself mildly amused by the volume, although it took issue with the morals of some of its stories: ‘The story of the “Lovely Child,” who always looked pretty when she was good, may perhaps encourage juvenile vanity; and, in “The Fairy Tale,” the plan to deceive an old grandmother, even “with just cause,” should not have been commended’ (
The Monthly Review, or Literary Journal
, 1822, 216).
New Tales for Young Readers
was, by this account, fairly insignificant hack work, but it did pave the way for Bess to become a writer, and for the publication of her first major work,
Flora Domestica
, in 1823.
12
Mary Cowden Clarke,
The Life and Labours of Vincent Novello
, p.10.
13
The Examiner
434 (21/04/1816), 247–50.
14
Thomas Medwin,
Conversations of Lord Byron
, pp.253–4.
15
Claire Clairmont to Lord Byron, March/ April 1816.
The Clairmont Correspondence
, I, 25.
16
Claire Clairmont to Lord Byron, 16/04/1816.
The Clairmont Correspondence
, I, 36.
17
Claire Clairmont to Lord Byron, 21/04/1816.
The Clairmont Correspondence
, I, 39.
18
Claire Clairmont to Lord Byron, 22/04/1816.
The Clairmont Correspondence
, I, 42.
19
Percy Shelley to Thomas Peacock, 15/05/1816.
PBS Letters
, I, 474.
20
Mary Shelley to Fanny Imlay, 17/05/1816.
MWS Letters
, I, 16.
21
Lord Byron to John Cam Hobhouse, 16/05/1816.
Byron’s Letters and Journals
, V, 76–7.
22
Claire Clairmont to Lord Byron, 25/05/1816.
The Clairmont Correspondence
, I, 46.
23
Claire Clairmont to Lord Byron, 27/05/1816.
The Clairmont Correspondence
, I, 47.
24
The Diary of Dr John William Polidori
, ed. William Rosetti, p.101.
25
Thomas Moore,
Letters and Journals of Lord Byron
, II, 24.
26
Lord Byron to Douglas Kinnaird, 20/01/1817.
Byron’s Letters and Journals
, V, 162.
27
Mary Shelley to Fanny Imlay, 17/05/1816.
MWS Letters
, I, 18.
28
Mary Shelley to Fanny Imlay, 01/06/1816.
MWS Letters
, I, 20.
29
The Diary of Dr John William Polidori
, pp.123, 121.
30
Mary Shelley,
Frankenstein
(1831), pp.8–10.
31
Claire Clairmont to Lord Byron, March/ April, 1816.
The Clairmont Correspondence
, I, 24.
32
See Charles Robinson, ed.,
The Frankenstein Notebooks
, I, 59.
33
The Frankenstein Notebooks
, I, 75.

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