Shelley (PERCY BYSSHE English poet son)

Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)

2026 Editor's Note: This page uses language about race that was commonplace when the book was published and is offensive by today's standards. The text has been left exactly as it was printed, rather than cut or softened, so that the historical record — including how ordinary such language once was — is preserved. (Ed: ET 2026-07-22) PERCY BYSSHE, English poet , son of T Timothy Shelley and grandson of Sir Bysshe Shelley; born Horsham, England, Aug. 4, 1792; educated, Sion House (Brentford), Eton, and University College, Oxford. Of a delicate constitution he was early characterized by an extreme sensibility and a lively imagination, and by a resolute resistance to authority, custom, and every form of what he considered tyranny. At Eton he put mously, a scholastic thesis entitled "The Necessity of Atheism." The authorship being known he was challenged, and refusing either to acknowledge or deny it, was at once expelled. After leaving the university , he completed his poem of "Queen Mab, " begun some time previously , 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 PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY in the Spenserian stanza. In September, 1811, six months after his expulsion, he eloped to Edinburgh with Harriet Westbrook, the daughter of a retired innkeeper. She was 16 years of age, his own age being 19. The marriage turned years of a wandering unsettled life Mrs. out unhappily, and after nearly three Shelley returned with two children to her father's house. In November, 1816, she was deeply affected by this event, but soon committed suicide by drowning. Shelley 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 cal opinions and irregular views on marthe children, on the plea that his atheistiriage made the father unfit to be intrusted with them . Partly from his lungs being affected , and partly from anxiety lest he newspaper, and was the author of numerous books including "His Brother's Keeper," "In His Steps," "Malcolm Kirk," "Edward Blake," "Born to Serve," etc. In 1920 he was appointed editor of the "Christian Herald," New York. SHELDON, EDWARD BREWSTER, an American playwright, born in Chicago, in 1886. He graduated from Harvard University in at once began the writing of plays. Among those were successfully produced "Salvation Nell" (1908); "The Nigger" (1909); "The High Road" (1912); "Garden of Paradise" (1915).