Annie Proulx’s watercolor “Arrastre L.”
Letter from Percy Bysshe Shelley to Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley
Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley (1797–1851)
Manuscript of the poem “The Choice”
ca. early May–July 1823
The Carl H. Pforzheimer Collection of Shelley and His Circle
Manuscript of the poem, “The Choice”
Mary Shelley painstakingly edited her husband’s posthumous poems, but her own poetry is little known. She once admitted: “I can never write verses except under the influence of strong asentiment [sic] & seldom even then.”
Her longest poem, “The Choice,” unpublished during her lifetime, is also her most personal. It deals with the series of tragedies she endured during her years in Italy, including the deaths of her infant daughter Clara and her three-year-old son William. The first stanza, shown here, mourns her “choice,” meaning Percy Bysshe Shelley—she completed her poem close to the one-year anniversary of his boating accident.
: Carl H. Pforzheimer Collection of Shelley and His Circle
Not currently on view
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Items in The Written Word
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Annie Proulx’s watercolor “Arrastre L.”
Not currently on view
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Manuscript of Mary Shelley’s poem “The Choice”
Not currently on view
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Letter from Percy Bysshe Shelley to Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley
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Discovery of Percy Shelley’s Body
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Fragments of the skull of Percy Bysshe Shelley
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The August 23rd Blouse
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