Shelley elsewhere

Preston Cribb’s etching, Shelley’s Cottage, Lynmouth

SMP Chair David Hide reflects on a recent Shelley find

Here at the Shelley Memorial Project we are always excited to hear details about Shelley’s life and works. We were pleased to have recently received a copy of Preston Cribb's etching, Shelley's Cottage, Lynmouth and, on further investigation, we have discovered that Shelley and his wife Harriet spent a number of weeks there in 1812. It was one of the locations in which he wrote Queen Mab.

In Neman Ivey White's, 'Shelley Volume One' the author refers to their stay in Lynmouth and makes much of his radical inclinations and  recounts how one of Shelley's party are seen  mailing, 'many packages and as many as sixteen letters a day. Many of his packages and letters were directed to that well-known radical and enemy of the assassinated Prime Minister, Sir Francis Burdett.'  Even in this short interlude in Devon we again seen his prodigious talent at play, both in terms of the writing of some of his best known poetry, as well as his on-going commitment to radical and progressive thinking. 

More details of the etching can be found here.