SHELLEY MARY: (1797-1851) ´´´´ I pray to God that we have good weather, I very much dislike travelling by sea in ...

SHELLEY MARY: (1797-1851) ´´´´ I pray to God that we have good weather, I very much dislike travelling by sea in bad weather...´

SHELLEY MARY: (1797-1851) English novelist of the Gothic novel Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus (1818) and the editor and promoter of the works of her husband, the Romantic poet Percy Bysshe Shelley. A rare A.L.S., Mary Shelley, two pages, 8vo, Sorrento, 10th July (1843), to Bartolomeo Cini, in Italian. Shelley writes concerning some letters written by her late husband, and her upcoming travel plans, (translated) ´I have received all of the letters about which you wrote to me, and this evening another one arrived to me by way of Signor Lotterelli, and I thank you greatly. We will depart one day this week. So please don´t send me any more. When we get to Livorno, I shall repay my debt. Leave a letter for me at your bank in order to let me know how much I owe you. I hope (and how much!) to see dear Nerina in Livorno. That may depend upon the day of our departure, which will be either Thursday or Saturday the 13th or 15th of this month. I pray to God that we have good weather, I very much dislike travelling by sea in bad weather...´. With integral address leaf in Shelley´s hand and bearing a small red wax seal. VG

Mary Shelley first contacted the Tuscan politician and railway financier Bartolomeo Cini (1809-1877) in the hope of recovering letters sent by her late husband, Percy Bysshe Shelley, to his mother-in-law, the Irish hostess and writer Margaret King (1773–1835). As a child in Ireland, Margaret King had been a favoured pupil of Mary’s mother, Mary Wollstonecraft; when Mary and her husband Percy came to travel in Italy, along with her stepsister Claire Clairmont, they relied upon King for support and advice, the young poet Percy in particular. Margaret was then living in Pisa with George William Tighe and their daughters Lauretta and Nerina; Nerina later married Bartolomeo Cini. Mary Shelley travelled in Italy with her son Percy Florence between 1840 and 1843 – journeys she described in Rambles in Germany and Italy, 1844 – accompanied by a Cambridge friend of her son’s, Andrew Alexander Knox.

Mary Shelley´s dislike of travelling by sea in bad weather, expressed in the present letter, was, of course, well founded. Being caught sailing in a storm would have undoubtedly evoked painful memories in Shelley of her husband´s tragic death.