Years 1836-Posthumous
A Chronology of the Life of Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley: 1836-Posthumous
| 1836 | 4 Feb | Jane Williams Hogg gives birth to a daughter, Prudentia Sarah Hogg; MWS will become the godmother. |
| [23] Mar | MWS removes Percy Florence from Harrow, employs a private tutor, and moves with her son to 14 North Bank, Regent's Park. | |
| 7 Apr | William Godwin dies and is buried on 14 April in the St. Pancras churchyard, close to Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin. In his will, he leaves his manuscripts and letters to MWS with the request that she chose those worthy to print and destroy the rest. The proceeds of any publications are to benefit Mrs. Godwin. | |
| 19 Jul | Henry Colburn agrees to pay Mary Jane Godwin 350 guineas for Godwin's memoirs; MWS begins work on the project, which she never completes. Mrs. Godwin also received £50 from the Royal Literary Fund and, thanks to MWS's appeal to Lord Melbourne, £300 from the Royal Bounty Fund. | |
| [10] Oct | MWS travels to Brighton to convalesce from a recurring malady. | |
| [Nov/Dec] | "The Parvenue" by "Mrs. Shelley" appears in The Keepsake for MDCCCXXXVII (209-11). | |
| 1837 | 2 Feb | MWS returns to London. |
| Feb | Falkner. A Novel (London: Saunders and Otley) is published in three volumes; the title page attributes the novel to "The Author of 'Frankenstein;' 'The Last Man,' &c." | |
| Mar | MWS moves to 24 South Audley Street. | |
| [Sep/Oct] | Lives of the Most Eminent Literary and Scientific Men of Italy, Spain and Portugal, Vol 3 (London: Longman, Orme, Brown, [etc]) is published. | |
| 10 Oct | Percy Florence enters Trinity College, Cambridge. | |
| [Nov] | MWS moves to 41d Park Street, Grovenor Square. | |
| [Nov/Dec] | "The Pilgrims" appears in The Keepsake for MDCCCXXXIX (128-55). | |
| 1838 | [Jul] | Lives of the Most Eminent Literary and Scientific Men of France, Vol 1 (of 2) (London: Longman, Orme, Brown, [etc.]) of The Cabinet of Biography, Conducted by the Rev. Dionysius Lardner is published. |
| Aug | Sir Timothy Shelley permits MWS to publish Shelley's poems, provided that the works contain no memoirs of his son. MWS gets around this restriction by writing biographical notes for the poems. | |
| [Nov/Dec] | MWS publishes two poems in The Keepsake for MDCCCXXXIX: "Stanzas" ("How like a star you rose upon my life") (179) and "Stanzas" ("O come to me in dreams, my love!") (201). The issue also contains a story: "Euphrasia: A Tale of Greece" by "Mrs. Shelley" (135-52). | |
| 1839 | Jan-May | MWS's four-volume edition of Poetical Words of Percy Bysshe Shelley (London: Edward Moxon), with her preface and notes, is published; she dedicates the edition to Percy Florence. |
| [Mar] | MWS undergoes a period of severe illness, possibly brought about by the strain of editing PBS's poems. She is frequently ill for the last 10 years of her life. | |
| [18] Mar | MWS moves to Layton House, Putney. | |
| [1] Aug | Lives of the Most Eminent Literary and Scientific Men of France, Vol 2 (London: Longman, Orme, Brown, [etc.]) is published. | |
| Nov | MWS's one volume edition of Poetical Words of Percy Bysshe Shelley (London: Edward Moxon) is published. | |
| Dec | MWS's edition of Percy Shelley's Essays, Letters from Abroad, Translations and Fragments (London: Edward Moxon) is published in two volumes. | |
| 1840 | 25 Mar | MWS moves to 3 The Rise, Richmond. |
| [5] Jun | MWS, Percy Florence, and his friends tour the Continent, arriving in Paris on 22 June. The group travels through Germany and Switzerland, spends July and August in Cadenabbia, and then proceeeds to Milan, arriving on 11 September. Percy leaves for England with his friends a week later, and MWS continues to Paris, arriving on 10 October and remaining until the end of the year. | |
| 1841 | [11] Jan | MWS moves to 84 Park Street, London. |
| Feb | Percy Florence graduates from Trinity College, Cambridge. Sir Timothy increases his allowance to £400. | |
| [17] May | MWS moves to 35 Half Moon Street. | |
| 17 Jun | Mary Jane Godwin dies. | |
| 1842 | Jun - 30 Aug, 1843 | MWS, Percy Florence, and friends tour the Continent again, this time visiting Kissingen, Berlin, Dresden, Venice, Florence, Rome, and Paris. |
| Jul-Aug | MWS visits Claire in Paris, where Claire introduces her to a group of Italian exiled revolutionaries, including Ferdinando Luigi Gatteschi. | |
| 1843 | Sep | MWS moves to White Cottage, Putney. |
| 1844 | 24 Apr | Sir Timothy Shelley dies; Percy Florence inherits the estate and title. |
| Jul | Rambles in Germany and Italy in 1840, 1842, and 1843 (London: Edward Moxon) is published in two volumes. | |
| 1845 | Sep | Ferdinando Gatteschi, whom MWS had aided financially and whose writing she had encouraged, attempts to blackmail her with her letters to him. Through the help of Percy Florence's friend Alexander Knox, the Italian police destroy the letters on 11 October. |
| Oct | George "Byron," an unknown correspondent who claimed to be Byron's son, offers to sell MWS several letters written by PBS and herself. In February 1846, he threatens to publish letters from both PBS and Harriet Shelley, but is dissuaded when MWS threatens an injunction against the publication. | |
| 1846 | [Mar] | MWS moves to 24 Chester Square, Pimlico. |
| 1848 | 22 Jun | Percy Florence marries Jane St. John. |
| Aug | MWS, Percy Florence, and Jane move to Field Place. In November, they also take an apartment in Warwick Square. | |
| 1849 | May | Charles Clairmont's daughter, Clara Clairmont, visits MWS at Field Place. There, she meets Alexander Knox. |
| 16 June | Alexander Knox and Clara Clairmont marry; this creates an estrangement between Claire and the Shelleys. | |
| 26 Dec | Frankenstein; or, The Model Man, by William and Robert Brough, opens at the Adelphi Theatre for a run of 26 performances. | |
| 1851 | 1 Feb | MWS dies at age 53 in her home at Chester Square, London. Lady Jane Shelley arranges for the remains of Mary Wollstonecraft and William Godwin to be moved from St. Pancras to the churchyard at St. Peters, Bournemouth, and on 8 February, MWS is buried between her parents. |
| 1859 | 28 Aug | Leigh Hunt dies. |
| 1862 | 21 Aug | Thomas Jefferson Hogg dies. |
| 1879 | 19 Mar | Claire Clairmont dies. |
| 1881 | 13 Aug | Edward John Trelawny dies. |
| 1884 | Nov | Jane Williams Hogg dies. |
| 1889 | 5 Dec | Percy Florence Shelley dies. |
| 1922 | MWS's drama Midas, which she wrote in 1820, is published in Proserpine & Midas: Two unpublished Mythological Dramas by Mary Shelley, ed. A.H. Koszul (London: Humphrey Milford). | |
| 1959 | MWS's 1819-1829 novel Mathilda, ed. Elizabeth Nitchie (Chapel Hill, NC: UNC Press), which she wrote in 1819-1820, is published. |
Notes
Bennett, Crook: [23] Mar
Sunstein: [25] Mar
Feldman and Scott-Kilvert: Apr
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24 Apr 1844
Bennett, Feldman and Scott-Kilvert: 24 Apr
Stocking: 23 Apr
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Last Modified on 11 February, 1998
