Poor Shelly ...

Percy Bysshe Shelley (4 August 1792 – 8 July 1822) was one of the major English Romantic poets and is critically regarded among the finest lyric poets in the English language. Shelley was famous for his association with John Keats and Lord Byron.

Shelley never lived to see the extent of his success and influence in generations to come. Some of his works were published, but they were often suppressed upon publication. Up until his death, with approximately 50 readers as his audience, it is said that he made no more than 40 pounds from his writings.

In 1820, hearing of John Keats' illness from a friend, Shelley wrote him a letter inviting him to join him at his residence at Pisa. Keats replied with hopes of seeing him, but instead, arrangements were made for Keats to travel to Rome with the artist Joseph Severn. Inspired by the death of Keats, in 1821 Shelley wrote the elegy Adonais.

I read in this museum that Shelly loves to write his poems by sailing in a boat. On one such similar trip on 8 July 1822, less than a month before his 30th birthday, Shelley drowned in a sudden storm while sailing back from Livorno to Lerici in his schooner, Don Juan. POOR SHELLY DID NOT KNOW SWIMMING. He was drowned to death.
But Shelley claimed to have met his Doppelgänger, foreboding his own death.

The day after Shelley's death, the Tory newspaper 'The Courier' gloated: "Shelley, the writer of some infidel poetry, has been drowned, now he knows whether there is a God or not."

Like to read more: click the following:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Percy_Bysshe_Shelley