Shelley's Ghost

Shelley and Mary are commemorated together in this bivalve locket; the lock of Mary’s hair is from 1816, Shelley’s from 1822, the last year of his life. Inscribed on the outside of the locket is a line adapted from Petrarch's Canzoniere, no. 309 (‘Blessed the eyes that saw him alive'; the object of Petrarch's original line is female – ‘beati gli occhi che la vider viva'). Mary Shelley quoted from Petrarch when bringing together Shelley's unpublished poems (see 'Poems and Fragments by Percy Bysshe Shelley'). The locket's inscription, and the fact that it contains both Mary's and Shelley's hair, indicate that it was made at least in Mary's spirit -- she herself already cites the adapted quotation in a letter of 1824 -- though perhaps for her son and daughter-in-law.

Lady Shelley; (gift, 1894) Bodleian.

Mary Shelley Letters, i, p. 430.

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