In this framed letter Mary, employing her elegant hand, is eager to set the record straight about what would be later known as the ‘Masi affair’, which involved a row that had taken place on 24 March 1822 between the Tuscan dragoon Stefano Masi and the male members of the Shelley circle, including Byron. The gentlemen were used to doing some regular pistol practice and that afternoon they had been galloped through by the dragoon, who was later injured by ‘Tita’, Byron’s coachman, and vowed ‘deadly revenge’. The villain of the story ended up being the Irish author-would-be John Taaffe who, according to Mary Shelley, had ‘kept at a safe distance during the row, but fearing to be sent out of Tuscany, he wrote at first such a report as embroiled him with Lord Byron’.