Sir Timothy Shelley
Shelley's father
Thomas Jefferson Hogg
Lifelong friend of Shelley and co-author of "The Necessity of Atheism"
Harriet Westbrook
Shelley’s first wife. Mother of his first two children, Ianthe and William (“Willmouse”). Later separated from Shelley and committed suicide by drowning in 1816.
Eliza Westbrook
Harriet’s sister. Traveled with Shelley and Harriet from 1814-16.
William Godwin
English radical and philosopher. Mentor to Shelley and father of Mary (Wollstonecraft-Godwin) Shelley.
Mary Wollstonecraft
Feminist and essayist. Mother of Mary (Wollstonecraft-Godwin) Shelley.
Ianthe Shelley
First child (daughter) of Shelley and Westbrook. Later known as “Lady Shelley,” who commissioned the Shelley monument at Oxford University.
Charles Shelley
Son of Shelley and Westbrook.
Mary Wollstonecraft-Godwin Shelley
Second wife to Shelley. Daughter of William Godwin and Mary Wollstonecraft. Mother to Clara, William, and Percy Florence Shelley. Author of Frankenstein.
Claire Claremont
Half sister of Mary Shelley. Traveled with the young Shelleys from 1818-22. Lover of Lord Byron and mother of his daughter Allegra.
Clara, William “Willmouse,” and Percy Florence Shelley
Children of Percy and Mary. Clara and William died as infants.
William Wordsworth
First-generation Romantic. Shelley’s work often mimics or mocks Wordsworth’s poetry.
Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Another first-generation Romantic.
Thomas Love Peacock
Lifelong Shelley friend and editor.
Leigh Hunt
Shelley friend and contemporary.
Lord Gordon Byron
Shelley friend and accomplished British poet. Byron, Shelley, and Keats were the vanguard of the second generation of Romantics.
John Keats
Shelley friend (albeit later in life) and the subject of "Adonais." Keats died at an early age in 1821, devastating Shelley (who died in 1822) and virtually ending the period of Romanticism.
Edward Trelawny
Shelley contemporary and friend while in Pisa.
Edward Williams
Retired British Lieutenant and friend of Shelley’s “Pisan Crowd.” Williams drowned with Shelley in the Mediterranean Sea while en route to Lerici, Italy, in 1822.
Jane Williams
Wife of Edward Williams and presumptive lover of Shelley. Jane is the subject (being directly named) of several of Shelley’s final love songs.
Richard Holmes
British biographer most famously known for his incomparable Shelley: The Pursuit (1974).
