FROM THE PUBLISHER

"This major biography of Shelley, England's most radical and controversial Romantic poet, is the first to appear in thirty years. Integrating the author's extensive research and recent Shelley scholarship, the biography stresses the intimate relationship between the poet's writing and his complex personality. Explored in this volume is Shelley's rejection of his aristocratic family's conformist values, his alienation from his parents after dismissal from Oxford for publishing atheistic views, and his quickly formed disastrous first marriage. His political activism in Ireland, his elopement with Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin (after his first wife's suicide), and the loss of legal custody of his children are also discussed. Calling poets the "unacknowledged legislators of the world," Shelley left an unmatched literary legacy, espousing love, nonviolence, championing freedom, and decrying political, religious, and sexual tyranny." "This biography stresses a central aspect of Shelley's development, the three-generational conflict involving his namesake paternal grandfather, his father, and himself. Significant new information concerning his grandfather's life is presented, beginning with his birth in New Jersey in 1731. At least equally influential was Shelley's independent, rather libidinal mother. Presented for the first time are details of her background and letters, which include descriptions of her young son's pranks." "Shelley's pursuit of knowledge never ceased. His extensive intellectual interests included classical literature, philosophy, the natural sciences, proficiency in languages, foreign cultures, and the psychology of the day. Shelley never met his poetic forbears, Coleridge and Wordsworth. His complicated relationships included the literary luminaries Lord Byron, John Keats, Leigh Hunt, Thomas Love Peacock, Robert Southey, William Godwin, and Mary Shelley. Mary, enduring Shelley's continuing need for the presence of her stepsister Claire Clairmont in

SYNOPSIS