MANUSCRIPTS
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Autograph Letter by Percy B. Shelley to Edward Trelawny
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Shelley discusses the Don Juan and asks Trelawny to procure him a small quantity of prussic acid. ‘I need not tell you I have no intention of suicide at present’, he assures him, ‘but I confess it would be a comfort to me to hold in my possession that golden key to the chamber of perpetual rest. The prussic acid is used in medicine in infinitely minute doses; but that preparation is weak, and has not the concentration necessary to medicine all ills infallibly—A single drop, even less, is a dose, and it acts by paralysis.’ Shelley was then suffering from periodic but excruciating pain, possibly as a result of kidney stones., Gift of Colonel and Mrs Call, 1912., Mrs Call’s father was Trelawny.
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Autograph Letter by Percy B. Shelley to Horace Smith
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Shelley writes to his London friend Horace Smith on behalf of his father-in-law William Godwin, concerning ‘that most odious of all subjects, money’. Godwin had written to his daughter Mary to say that he was in serious financial difficulty and required £400. Shelley also describes his life in Lerici, and gives an interesting insight into his relationship with Byron: ‘As to me, like Anacreon’s swallow, I have left my Nile, and have taken up my summer quarters here, in a lonely house close by the sea side, surrounded by the soft & sublime scenery of the Gulph of Spezia – I do not write – I have lived too long near Lord Byron & the sun has extinguished the glowworm; for I cannot hope with St. John, that ‘the light came into the world, & the world knew it not.’, Acquired by the Keats-Shelley Memorial Association (KSMA), 23 May 1911., Purchased by Sir James Knowles from Miss Smith, daughter of the above, and acquired by the KSMA from the executors of Sir James Knowles on 23 May, 1911 by subscriptions given by Miss Marie Corelli, Lord Curzon of Kedlestone, Sir Samuel Boulton, Bt., and and Messrs. Harold Boulton and Arthur Severn.
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Autograph Letter by Percy B. Shelley to Horace Smith
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Shelley was not surprised when Smith replied to his earlier letter saying that he was unable to loan Godwin any money. ‘I have been long firmly persuaded that all the money advanced to Godwin so long as he stands engaged in business is absolutely thrown away’, he writes. He then informs Smith that Leigh Hunt had arrived in Genoa to work with Byron and himself on a new journal, The Liberal. Knowing how different Byron and Hunt were, Shelley had his reservations about this: ‘Between ourselves I greatly fear that this alliance will not succeed, for I, who could never have been regarded as more than the link of the two thunderbolts, cannot now consent to be even that – & how long the alliance between the wren & the eagle may continue I will not prophesy.’, Acquired by the Keats-Shelley Memorial Association (KSMA), 23 May 1911., Purchased by Sir James Knowles from Miss Smith daughter of the above and acquired by the KSMA from the executors of Sir James Knowles on 23 May 1911 by subscriptions given by Miss Marie Corelli, Lord Curzon of Kedlestone, Sir Samuel Boulton, Bt., and Messrs. Harold Boulton and Arthur Severn.
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Byron 200: A digital exhibition