Claire Clairmont and the Shelleys 1798-1879
Format:Paperback
Publisher:Oxford University Press
Published:1st Jun '95
Currently unavailable, and unfortunately no date known when it will be back
The first biography for 50 years of a key figure in the lives of the Romantics
Claire Clairmont, stepsister of Mary Shelley and mother of Byron's illegitimate daughter Allegra, has never been given a full biographical treatment until this acclaimed biography by the late Robert Gittings and Jo Manton. Drawing on her vivid letters and journals, it portrays a woman of talent and resilience making her way in 19th-century Europe.Claire Clairmont, the stepsister of Mary Shelley, has usually been presented as a minor, though damaging figure in the great dramas of Shelley and Byron. This first continuous account of her long and adventurous life describes her upbringing in Godwin's progressive household, her close but ambiguous relationship with Percy and Mary Shelley, and her role as the mother of Allegra, her illegitimate daughter by Byron, who died in childhood. It continues with the struggle to maintain herself independently after Shelley's death, refusing offers of marriage and working as governess among a variegated series of families in Florence, Vienna, Petersburg, Moscow, Paris, and London. Drawing on her vivid letters and journals, the authors portray a woman of talent and resilience making her way in nineteenth-century Europe. They show her sharp judgement, her powers of observation, her flair for languages, and the lovely singing voice which drew poems from Shelley and Byron. Robert Gittings and Jo Manton bring into focus a lesser-known life of much drama and pathos, at the same time enhancing our knowledge of the main characters of the Romantic movement, and their world.
`a glorious wealth of material, put togeher with scholarly scupulousness and self-effacing sympathy, which enables, the women of the past to speak for themselves...a superbly readable life of a woman who, though rash and flawed, was also talented, generous and full of resilient courage.' Caroline moore, Sunday Telegraph
'This book is a joy to read...Her life has now been rescued from oblivion and her memory made secure in this excellent and highly enjoyable biography.'Richard Mullen, Contemporary Review
'this wonderful volume...No one can read [it] without being deeply impressed by Claire's invincible independence...her judgements on all her experiences, better et out here than ever before, are worth detailed examination...' Michael Foot
'interesting in direct proportion to the unfamiliarity of its subject matter...she emerges from the biography as a far more attractive person than she has ever seemed in books about her more famous friends.' Lucy Hughes-Hallett, Sunday Times
'Never before... has she had so much biographical attention to herself - and the result is not simply to recreate and endearing personality, but to illuminate the talents she moved among.' Andrew Motion, The Observer
'scholarly and sympathetic, and makes us feel the growth of Clairmont's mind. the authors' feminism is unagressive, but it's there, in deft quotations from her Journal, where the sublime landscapes and satiric humour reflect an essential Regency dichotomy, andin the record of her independence and generosity.' Loraine Fletcher, New Statesmen
'this thoughtful and balanced biography will intrigue the general reader and generate new perspectives for those with interests in the Romantics or Women's Studies.' Catherine Maxwell, St Hugh's College, Oxford, YES, 24, 1994
ISBN: 9780198183518
Dimensions: 216mm x 138mm x 24mm
Weight: 428g
292 pages