Poole
& Bournemouth
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Poole |
| In 1999, Poole was the home of the Shelley Museum, located
within Boscombe Manor, the residence of Shelley’s only surviving
child Percy Florence. The museum has since been closed,
and we have attempted to trace the present location of the
exhibits without success. When we visited in 1999, we discovered
a wonderfully eclectic collection of Shelley and Byron memorabilia:
Shelley’s baby curls, cut before he left for Syon House,
and a portrait of Byron’s daughter Allegra; |
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| an inkstand used by the poet, and his baby cap; |
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| a model of the yacht Ariel and a letter from Ianthe Shelley
to her daughter; |
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as
well as
myriad
books, paintings,
autograph
manuscripts,
and virtually
anything
relating
to the
Shelley
circle
or Shelley's
descendants.
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Bournemouth
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| In Bournemouth, one finds St. Peter’s Church, founded
in the 1840s. Its cemetery holds a large tomb containing
three generations of the Godwin/Wollstonecraft/Shelley family;
here are buried William Godwin and Mary Wollstonecraft,
who in 1851 were removed from the St. Pancras cemetery and
placed in the vault with their daughter Mary; the heart
(or liver, depending on whom one talks to) of their son-in-law
Percy Bysshe Shelley; and their grandson Percy Florence
and his wife. |
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