Percy Bysshe Shelley

Pointers to the Letters

Based on The Letters of Percy Bysshe Shelley, 2 vols., ed. Frederick L. Jones (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1964)

Compiled by David S. Miall, University of Alberta

Volume II: Shelley in Italy

The pointers provided in the following table are designed to enable the Letters to be consulted for (a) significant moments in Shelley's biography, and (b) some of Shelley's key ideas and responses. In many cases the letter designated is only the first of a series. In a few cases, indicated by multiple dates (e.g., 14/17 Feb 1811) two consecutive letters that deal with the same topic have been indicated. The extracts quoted often appear on a later page than the page cited, which is the page on the which the letter begins.

Letters with an askerisk against the Topic are available in a fuller version on Romanticism: The CD-ROM.

PAGEDATERECIPIENTTOPICEXTRACT
36 Apr 1818Peacock pleasure at arrival in ItalyOur journey was somewhat painful from the cold & in no other manner interesting until we passed the Alps: of course I except the Alps themselves, but no sooner had we arrived in Italy than the loveliness of the earth & the serenity of the sky made the greatest difference in my sensations
620 Apr 1818Peacock account of visit to Lake ComoThe union of culture & the untameable profusion & loveliness of nature is here so close that the line where they are divided can hardly be discovered.
922 Apr 1818ByronClare's interest as a mother in AllegraYou write as if from the instant of its departure all future intercourse were to cease between Clare and her child. This I cannot think you ought to have expected, or even to have desired.
1910 July 1818Gisbornes translating Plato's Symposium
2325 July 1818Peacock bathing in pool at Bagni di LuccaMy custom is to undress and sit on the rocks, reading Herodotus, until the perspiration has subsided, and then to leap from the edge of the rock into this fountain
3423 Aug 1818Mary arrives in Venice with Clare and AllegraWe past the laguna in the middle of the night in a most violent storm of wild rain & lightning. It was very curious to observe the elements above in a state of such tremendous convulsion & the surface of the water almost calm
4025 Sept 1818Claire death of second child Clara at Venicethis unexpected stroke reduced Mary to a kind of despair
418 Oct 1818Peacock on Venice, under Austrian controlThe Austrians take sixty percent in taxes, & impose free quarters on the inhabitants. A horde of German soldiers as vicious & more disgusting than the Venetians themselves insult these miserable people.
456 Nov 1818Peacock en route to Naples, journey to Ferrara
5420 Nov 1818Peacockaccount of journey to RomeBehold me in this capital of the vanished world
5717-18 Dec 1818Peacocksights of Rome, Naples, visit Vesuvius etc.*[The Coliseum] has been changed by time into the image of an amphitheatre of rocky hills overgrown by the wild-olive the myrtle & the fig tree, & threaded by little paths which wind among its ruined stairs & immeasurable galleries
7023-24 Jan 1819Peacock visit to Pompeii*They lived in harmony with nature, & the interstices of their incomparable columns, were portals as its were to admit the spirit of beauty which animates this glorious universe to visit those whom it inspired.
7725 Feb 1819Peacock visit to Paestum; criticism of MichelangeloI cannot but think the genius of this artist highly overrated. He has not only no temperance not modesty no feeling for the just boundaries of art . . . but he has no sense of beauty
8323 Mar 1819Peacock return to Rome; Caracalla, Forum, Pantheon, etc.*Never was any desolation more sublime & lovely. The perpendicular wall of ruin is cloven into steep ravines filled with flowering shrubs whose thick twisted roots are knotted in the rifts of the stones.
916 Apr 1819Peacock society of Rome, politics, womenI have seen two women in society here of the highest beauty, their brows & lips and the moulding of the face modelled with sculptural exactness, & the dark luxuriance of their hair floating over their fine complexions
978 June 1819Peacock death of William, first child, in Romeit seems to me as if, hunted by calamity as I have been, that I should neve[r] recover any cheerfulness again --
9821-21 June 1819? Peacock in Livorno; on Nightmare AbbeyI think Scythrop a character admirably conceived & executed, & I know not how to praise sufficiently the lightness chastity & strength of the language of the whole.
10120 July 1819Peacockhopes for staging of The CenciWhat I want you to do is to procure for me its presentation at Covent Garden. The principal character Beatrice is precisely fitted for Miss O Neil
1189 Sept 1819Peacock receives news of Peterloo massacreThe tyrant here, as in the French Revolution, have first shed blood. May their execrable lessons not be learnt with equal docility!
12127 Sept 1819Hunt moving to Florence; on BoccaccioBoccaccio seems to me to have possessed a deep sense of the fair ideal of human life considered in its social relations. His more serious theories of love agree especially with mine.
12615 Oct 1819Olliersends Cenci, Prometheus; review of Revolt of IslamThe droll remarks of the Quarterly, and Hunt's kind defence, arrived as safe as such poison, and safer than such an antidote, usually do.
1363 Nov 1819Examiner protests trial of Carlisle for publishing Painewe see on the one hand men professing to act by the public authority who put in practice the trampling down & murdering an unarmed multitude without distinction of sex or age, & on the other a tribunal which punishes men for asserting that deeds of the same character, transacted in a distant age & country were not done by the command of God.
15013 Nov 1819Hunt Mary gives birth to Percy FlorenceYou may imagine this is a great relief & a great comfort to me amongst all ny misfortunes past present & to come.
18316 Apr 1820Medwin encourages Medwin to come to Italy
19726 May 1820Byron on Allegra; praises Don Juan, I & IIWhere did you learn all these secrets? I should like to go to school there.
20630 June 1820Gisbornesembarrassed by Godwin's request for a loanIf you perceive that the money will not fulfil its object, or that you cannot enforce the intended appropriation of it, I entreat you to refuse to lend it at all.
22027 July 1820Keats invites him to Italy to cure consumptionThis consumption is a disease particularly fond of people who write such good verses as you have done, and with the assistance of an English winter it can often indulge its selection
2247 Aug 1820Godwinrejects any further claims for moneyI have given you within a few years the amount of a considerable fortune, & have destituted myself, for the purpose of realising it of nearly four times the amount.
23017 Aug 1820Southeydefends his virtueYou select a single passage out of a life otherwise not only spotless but spent in impassioned pursuit of virtue, which looks like a blot, merely because I regulated my domestic arrangements without deferring to the notions of the vulgar
23929 Oct 1820M. Hunt has read Keats; inquires his whereaboutsI consider his a most valuable life, & I am deeply interested in his safety. I intend to be the physician both of his body & his soul
24129 Oct 1820Claireconsoles Claire during her absenceYou know, however, whatever you shall determine on, where to find one ever affectionate Friend, to whom your absence is too painful for your return ever to be unwelcome.
2448 Nov 1820Peacock reads Keats's Hyperion; his own poor receptionit is certainly an astonishing piece of writing, and gives me a conception of Keats which I confess I had not before.
251? Nov 1820Giffordprotests review of Keats's Endymion (unsent)Poor Keats was thrown into a dreadful state of mind by this review
2542 Jan 1821? Claire visiting Emilia Viviani in conventShe continues to enchant me infinitely; and I soothe myself with the idea that I make the discomfort of her captivity lighter to her by demonstration of the interest which she has awakened in me.
25616 Jan 1821ClaireJohn and Jane Williams arrive in PisaThe Williams's are come & Mrs. W. dined here to day, an extremely pretty & gentle woman -- apparently not very clever.
26115 Feb 1821Peacock responds to Peacock's Four Ages of Poetryyour anathemas against poetry itself excited me to a sacred rage . . . I had the greatest possible desire to break a lance with you, within the lists of a magazine, in honour of my mistress Urania
26216 Feb 1821Olliersends Epipsychidion for limited publicationIt is to be published simply for the esoteric few; and I make its author a secret, to avoid the malignity of those who turn sweet food into poison
272March 1821Literary Miscellany early draft of Defence of Poetry
27520 March 1821Ollier sends Defence of Poetry for publication
2804 Apr 1821Medwin hears that Keats is dying in Rome[In fact Keats had died on February 23]
28517/19 Apr 1821Reveleydesigns for a boat to be used around Pisa
2935 June 1821Gisborne writing Adonais on the death of KeatsIt is a highly wrought piece of art, perhaps better in point of composition than any thing I have written.
29811 June 1821Ollier seeks to prevent republication of Queen MabI recollect it is villainous trash; & I dare say much better fitted to injure than to serve the cause which it advocates.
30816 July 1821Byronexpects Byron to write a great poemI still feel impressed with the persuasion that you ought -- and if there is prophecy in hope, that you will write a great and connected poem
3167 Aug 1821Mary refutes story that Clare was his mistressIt seems that Elise . . . has persuaded the Hoppners of a story so monstrous & incredible that they must have been prone to believe any evil to have believe such assertions upon such evidence.
3208 Aug 1821Mary visiting Byron; sights at RavennaOur way of life is this . . . L.B. gets up at two -- breakfasts -- we talk read &c. until six then we ride, & dine at eight . . .
33111 Aug 1821Mary Byron has decided to move to PisaHe wishes for a large & magnificent house, but he has furniture of his own which he would send from Ravenna. -- Inquire if any of the large palaces are to be let.
33315 Aug 1821Mary account of visiting Allegra at her conventHer predominant foible seems the love of distinction & vanity -- and this is a plant which produces good or evil according to the gardeners skill.
34326 Aug 1821Byron has secured a house for Byron in PisaI have taken your house for 400 crowns a year, and signed the compact on your part
34326 Aug 1821Hunt invited Hunt to Italy to publish a journalHe [Byron] proposes that you should come and go shares with him and me, in a periodical work, to be conducted here; in which each of the contracting parties should publish all their original compositions, and share the profits.
35225 Sept 1821Ollier describes and praises Mary's ValpergaI know nothing in Walter Scott's novels which at all approaches to the beauty and sublimity of this -- creation
3556 Oct 1821Hunt advises Hunt on travelling to Pisa
35721 Oct 1821Byron praises originality of Don JuanI am content -- You are building up a drama, such as England has not seen, and the task is sufficiently noble & worthy of you.
36511 Nov 1821Ollier sends Hellas for publicationWhat little interest this Poem may excite, depends upon it's immediate publication
37311 Jan 1822? Peacock living near Byron at PisaLord Byron is established now, & we are constant companions: no small relief after the dreary solitude of the understanding & imagination in which we past the first years of our expatriation, yoked to all sorts of miseries & discomforts.
37925 Jan 1822Hunt arrangements for the Hunts' journey to PisaLord Byron has assigned you a portion of his palace, & Mary & I had occupied ourselves in furnishing it.
38426 Jan 1822Williamssends melancholy poemI have lit upon these [lines]; which as they are too dismal for me to keep I send them you
38726 Jan 1822Gisbornewishes to change publisher from OllierI will have nothing more to do with Ollier on whatever terms or for whatever apology.
39620 Mar 1822ClaireByron's obstinacy over Claire seeing AllegraL. B. is at present a man of 12 or 15 thousand a year, he is on the spot, a man reckless of the ill he does others, obstinate to desperation in the pursuance of his plans or his revenge.
39924 Mar 1822Claire rebukes Claire for plan to kidnap Allegra; the Masi affray at PisaYour late plans about Allegra seems to me in its present form pregnant with irremediable infamy to all the actors in it except yourself; in any form wherein I must actively cooperate, with inevitable destruction.
40410 Apr 1822Huntresents his supposed inferiority to ByronCertain it is, that Lord Byron has made me bitterly feel the inferiority which the world has presumed to place between us and which subsists nowhere in reality but in our own talents, which are not our own but Nature's -- or in our rank, which is nto our own but Fortune's.
41328 Apr 1822Marymoving to Casa Magni near Lerici
4153 May 1822ByronClaire's response to death of AllegraI will not describe her grief to you; you have already suffered too much
41913 May 1821Robertspraises his new boat, the Don JuanShe is a most beautiful boat, & so far surpasses both mine & Williams's expectations that it was with some difficulty that we could persuade ourselves that you had not sent us the Bolivar by mistake.
43418 June 1822Gisbornehis small circle at LericiI detest all society -- almost all, at least -- and Lord Byron is the nucleus of all that is hateful and tiresome in it.
44129 June 1822Smith bad state of England and IrelandEngland appears to be in a desperate condition, Ireland still worse
4434 July 1822Mary confusion on Hunt's arrival at PisaThings are in the worst possible situation with respect to poor Hunt. I find Marianne in a desperate state of health . . .


To Volume I: Shelley in England


Return to Shelleys Course home page

Last updated August 9th 2003