P B
Shelley is the Devil Incarnate
Independent, The (London), Sep 6, 1998
by Suzi Feay
The younger Romantic poets and their households led
famously peripatetic lives, racketing round Europe shedding boxes, letters and
even children en route. Mary Shelley lost a trunk containing all her juvenilia
on one trip; it may yet turn up in some inefficient continental lost luggage
office. The story behind the discovery of a previously unknown children's story
by Mary Shelley is reminiscent of Henry James's The Aspern
Papers, a novella inspired by the scramble for the aged Claire Clairmont's last relics of P B Shelley.
Claire Tomalin outlines
the story brilliantly, setting Mary Shelley's unpretentious tale in its
fascinating context. It was written in 1820 for the 11-year-old daughter of
friends of the Shelleys in Pisa. Lady Mountcashell had once been the pupil of pioneer feminist
Mary Wollstonecraft, Mary Shelley's mother. Exiled and in disgrace, having
split from her husband the Earl, and with two illegitimate daughters, Laurette and Nerina, Margaret Mountcashell could sympathise
with the scandal-dogged atheist poet and his wife.
Laurette, the elder daughter, kept the handwritten story,
divided into three sections like a three-volume novel of the day ("a
playful touch, intended to please a bookish child", comments Tomalin). It turned up last November, alongside such
treasures as first editions of Adonais and Epipsychidion, in the library of the Casa Cini, the ancient palazzo still partially occupied by
Margaret Mountcashell's descendants. Amazingly, Laurette's second husband lived on until 1914, and is
fondly remembered by the family. The world of the Shelleys
suddenly seems very close.
And what of the story? "It is a small work, but touched with the
same spirit as the greater ones it stands among," says Tomalin.
A fine example of Romantic sentimentality, and elaborately constructed for its
brevity, it tells the story of Henry/Maurice, a foundling whose parentage is
finally revealed after much misery and loss. It ends happily, yet Tomalin is right to highlight its sadness and ambiguity,
and to link it to the Shelleys' unhappy legacy of
"lost" and dying children.
There was Allegra, Claire Clairmont's
child by Byron, shut up in a convent despite Claire's
frantic protests (she was soon to die there, aged five). There was William
Shelley, dead of a fever in 1819 in Rome aged three; and toddler Clara who died
in Venice in 1818 (Tomalin is gentle about blame, but
some critics have lambasted Shelley for dragging his family round Italy at the
behest of Lord Byron). And there was - still is - the mystery of the foundling
child Elena, registered in Naples as being the child of "Bercy Schelly" and
"Maria Gebuin" (Mary's maiden name was
Godwin). Mary was definitely not pregnant at that time, so who was the mother?
Elena died on 9 June 1820, aged 15 months; Maurice was probably written that
August.
It is printed here twice: in one form copy-edited,
the other retaining Mary Shelley's original spellings and line-endings. The
latter is to be preferred for its wayward charm: "semicercle"
and "shud" for "should". There is
also a humorous poem written by Margaret Mountcashell,
"Twelve Cogent Reasons for Supposing P B Sh- ll-y to be the D-v-l Inc-rn-t-",
citing his charity, learning and tolerance as proof of devilish propensities.
The real villain here is Byron, whose callous behaviour to Allegra and Claire is impossible to excuse.
"I will read no more of his poetry," wrote Lady Mountcashell
in disgust. It is sad to note that Tomalin seems also
to have become disenchanted with Shelley himself. "I have seen Mary
Shelley emerge slowly from the overshadowing reputation of her poet husband to
take her place as one of the key figures of the Romantic movement,"
she comments with approval. It would be a sad victory for political correctness
if the easy-to-read gothic novelist and put-upon wife
were to overtake the glorious lyric poet in fame. After all, he wrote "To
a Skylark" that summer.
Copyright 1998
Newspaper Publishing PLC
Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning
Company. All rights Reserved.
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