SHELLEY, PERCY BYSSHE, English poet, son of Timothy Shelley and grand son of Sir Bysshe Shelley; born Horsham, England, Aug. 4, 1792; educated, Sion House (Brentford), Eton, and University College, Oxford. Of a delicate constitu tion he was early characterized by an extreme sensibility and a lively imagina tion, and by a resolute resistance to authority, custom, and every form of what he considered tyranny. At Eton he put himself in opposition to the constituted authorities by refusing to submit to fag ging. At Oxford he published anony mously, a scholastic thesis entitled "The Necessity of Atheism." The authorship being known he was challenged, and re fusing either to acknowledge or deny it, was at once expelled. After leaving the university, he completed his poem of "Queen Mab," begun some time previous ly, and privately printed in 1813. His first great poem, "Alastor, or the Spirit of Solitude," (1816), was followed in 1817 by the "Revolt of Islam," a poem in the Spenserian stanza. In September, 1811, six months after his expulsion, he eloped to Edinburgh with Harriet West brook, the daughter of a retired inn keeper. She was 16 years of age, his own age being 19. The marriage turned out unhappily, and after nearly three years of a wandering unsettled life Mrs.
Shelley returned with two children to her father's house. In November, 1816, she committed suicide by drowning. Shelley was deeply affected by this event, but soon after married Mary Godwin, with whom he had visited the Continent in 1814, and by whom he already had a child. By a suit in Chancery decided in 1817, Mr. Westbrook obtained the guardianship of the children, on the plea that his atheisti cal opinions and irregular views on mar riage made the father unfit to be intrusted with them. Partly from his lungs being affected, and partly from anxiety lest he should be deprived of the children of his second marriage, Shelley left England in March, 1818, and the whole short re mainder of his life was passed in Italy. After staying for some time with Lord Byron at Venice he proceeded to Naples; after Naples he visited Rome; and from Rome he went to Florence and Leghorn, and finally settled at Pisa. On July 8, 1822, he was sailing with a Mr. Williams in the Bay of Spezia when both were drowned by, as was believed, the upset ting of the boat through a sudden squall. His body was, according to Italian law, cremated on the seashore.