Shelley's Ghost

In March or April 1816 Claire Clairmont began a short-lived liaison with Lord Byron, then the most celebrated poet of the day. That summer she followed Byron to Lake Geneva, accompanied by Shelley and Mary. There Shelley and Byron began one of the great literary friendships, brilliantly explored by Shelley in his poem ‘Julian and Maddalo’ . 

While in Switzerland Claire Clairmont discovered that she was pregnant. On 12 January 1817, back in England, she gave birth to Byron’s daughter. She called her Alba, but at Byron’s request she was named Allegra.

This is a faithful copy of a miniature by George Sanders, c.1812, which Byron pronounced ‘the best miniature of me’. The inscriptions on the locket indicate that it once belonged to Lady Caroline Lamb, perhaps Byron’s most notorious mistress. On the front is a quotation taken from Le Diable Amoureux, a novel by Jacques Cazotte published in Paris in 1772 (an English translation was published in 1810). Parallels can be drawn between its sensational plot and Lady Caroline’s affair with Byron, and she identified closely with its heroine, Biondetta. The date after the quotation commemorates the end of their affair. On the back, someone, possibly at Lady Caroline’s request, has engraved the negative ‘ne’ before the Byron family motto, ‘crede Byron’ ('believe Byron').