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6 Marlow, Buckinghamshire: A Literary Place <\/strong>Part 1.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n Not a specific house this month, but two.\u00a0 The pretty Georgian town of Marlow, sited on the Thames, has been \u2013 and continues to be – home to a number of literary figures.<\/strong><\/p>\n These included Percy and Mary Shelley (and their friend Thomas Love Peacock), Victorian novelists Jerome K Jerome and GPR James, genre-shattering poet TS Eliot \u2013 and children\u2019s writer, Enid Blyton.\u00a0 In the first of two articles this month, we explore the lives of a remarkable early 19th<\/sup> couple. \u00a0\u00a0Although this month\u2019s literary figures only lived briefly in Marlow, it is not an exaggeration to claim that the works they wrote there not only changed Western Literature, but also changed the world.<\/p>\n Marlow<\/strong><\/p>\n <\/p>\n The Shelleys<\/strong><\/p>\n Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley 1797-1851<\/strong><\/p>\n Mary was born into a free-thinking family.\u00a0 Her father was the political philosopher William Godwin and her mother \u2013 who died when Mary was 11 days old – was Mary Wollstonecraft, author of \u2018A Vindication of the Rights of Women\u2019.\u00a0 She was given an unorthodox and extensive education by her father, who described her at 15 as \u2018singularly bold, somewhat imperious, and active of mind. Her desire of knowledge is great, and her perseverance in everything she undertakes almost invincible.\u2019<\/p>\n At 16, Mary and the 21-year-old Percy Bysshe Shelley fell in love, trysting at her mother\u2019s grave.\u00a0 He was a follower of her father\u2019s political ideals, despite his aristocratic birth.\u00a0 Although he was married, in 1814 they eloped on a journey into Europe from which Mary returned pregnant.\u00a0 Sadly, the baby died but after two years of social ostracism and debt, Shelley\u2019s wife\u2019s suicide enabled them to marry in 1816.<\/p>\n That rainy summer, the Shelleys travelled to Switzerland and stayed with Lord Byron.\u00a0 It was trapped in that villa by poor weather that the group read German fairy tales and Byron challenged them each to write one.\u00a0 After initial block, Mary\u2019s extensive reading about the latest developments in science, and Galvanism in particular, gave her the vision that was to become her first novel.<\/p>\n In 1817, the Marlow connection begins.\u00a0 The Shelleys were back in England and settled into Albion House on West Street where Mary finished \u2018Frankenstein, or the Modern Prometheus\u2019.\u00a0 The house, at that time large and damp, has now been divided into several properties, one named \u2018Shelley Cottage\u2019.\u00a0 The product of a teenager, \u2018Frankenstein\u2019 proved to be the original Gothic science fiction story, a best seller that has been endlessly debated and dramatised.\u00a0 The first stage version opened in 1823.<\/p>\n In January 1818 the book was published, anonymously as was common at that time for books written by women.\u00a0 Later that year the Shelleys travelled to Italy and, tragically having lost two more children (and bearing one more who survived), Mary lost her husband when he was accidentally drowned in 1822.<\/p>\n Mary returned to England, negotiated with her father-in-law for an allowance to raise his grandson and heir, and lived at first with her family until she could afford to move out.\u00a0\u00a0 That brilliant mind supported her in supporting her child through her writing, but her unorthodox views and political persuasion and a marriage and friends tainted with scandal meant she was never central to society.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Percy Bysshe Shelley 1792-1822<\/strong><\/p>\n Son of a Sussex-based baronet and Whig MP, Shelley was bullied at Eton, for his radical socialist views, and Oxford, from which he was sent down for writing a pamphlet attacking Christianity.\u00a0 At 19 he eloped with 16-year-old Harriet Westbook with whom he had two children.\u00a0 At 21 he eloped again with Mary Godwin.\u00a0 After extensive European travels, his first wife\u2019s suicide enabled them to marry, although his family rejected them, causing financial hardship.\u00a0 Marlow provided them with a base close to London where they could both focus on writing.<\/p>\n Shelley\u2019s radical views and expressive exploration of them through his poetry have led to his reputation as a leading figure in the Romantic movement, along with his friend Byron.\u00a0 The emotions within his poems soar from the tragic to the sublime and his further travels in Europe and Italy with Mary provided the best of times but also the worst of times in terms of human love, thought and loss.\u00a0 Key works include \u2018Ode to a Skylark\u2019, \u2018Ozymandias\u2019 (familiar to most GCSE Eng Lit students), \u2018The Revolt of Islam\u2019 (exploring war and religion), and \u2018Prometheus Unbound\u2019.<\/p>\n Shelley and Mary both supported open marriage but while Shelley had a number of affairs, it seems that Mary\u2019s love prevented her from doing likewise, (she was also pregnant at least five times in the six years they were together).<\/p>\n Shelley\u2019s tragic death crystallised his position as a key Romantic figure alongside Keats, Byron and Wordsworth.<\/p>\n Ironically, given that most people have heard of \u2018Frankenstein\u2019 but have not read her husband\u2019s poems, the plaque put up on the house in Albion Street in 1867 records for perpetuity that \u2018Percy Bysshe Shelley lived and wrote in this house and was here visited by Lord Byron.\u00a0 There appears to be no mention of Mary!<\/p>\n \u00a9www.PropertySurveying.co.uk<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.propertysurveying.co.uk\/newsletter\/wp-content\/uploads\/marlow-waterside-properties-300x150.png\")
<\/strong>A Georgian market town full of listed buildings and sitting beside the River Thames, Marlow is considered one of the \u2018coolest\u2019 places in Britain to live.\u00a0 The elegant suspension bridge which spans the town and links Buckinghamshire to the north with Berkshire to its south, was designed by William Tierney Clark and opened in 1832.\u00a0 The Thames brought Marlow goods and prosperity and a raft of wealthy and famous residents.\u00a0 Today, the streets are vibrant with independent shops and eateries, perhaps the most ![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.propertysurveying.co.uk\/newsletter\/wp-content\/uploads\/The-Compleat-Angler-Marlow-Bucks-300x150.png\")
famous of which is four-star The Compleat Angler, (its name taken by a 1656 book on fishing by Izaak Walton) sited by the weir and offering Michelin-star dining as part of the Macdonald Hotel Group.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.propertysurveying.co.uk\/newsletter\/wp-content\/uploads\/The-Shelleys-House-Marlow-resized-300x169.jpg\")
It is hard to imagine a place less likely to conjure images of sentient monsters assembled from body parts of random criminals, but it was in Marlow that Mary Shelley finished the gothic story she created one soggy night in Switzerland.\u00a0\u00a0 While her poet husband was writing about skylarks, Mary finished writing \u2018Frankenstein\u2019.\u00a0 Convenient for London, and on the up, Marlow was a safe distance from Percy\u2019s disapproving and aristocratic family.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.propertysurveying.co.uk\/newsletter\/wp-content\/uploads\/The-Shelleys-House-Marlow-with-plaque-banner-300x169.jpg\")
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