Blog

‘Illustrators are word people who happen to draw. We work with one foot in a book and the other stuck in a paint pot. Our shoes are a disgrace’ – Wallace Trip.

‘Art is bridging words and images’ -Tony Kushner.

‘Illustrations in picture books are the first paintings most children see’ -Anthony Browne.

Like most book collectors, I have collected certain books just because they featured a favourite illustrator. While the average book purchaser doesn’t spend time considering the quality of the artwork, bindings, typeface, paper (or smell), they can still be unwittingly beguiled by these seemingly peripheral considerations. For me, these alchemical considerations are integral to my enjoyment.

And it’s not always about a new or expensive hardback edition either. An old paperback with an interesting cover can attract me more than an ugly hardback. Aesthetics depend on personal taste and cultural context.

I once purchased a tatty, coverless, 1815 Regency novel for a few dollars. The book had no monetary value at all – so why? Because I wanted to put myself in the original reader’s shoes. As I read, I swear I could detect the musty odour of leather boots and Regency oak panelling. It was a portal into another age.

A book is more than a collection of words; it is the sum of its parts and more besides. If an author decides to illustrate, those illustrations become part of the script. And a book is an unfolding story. An unillustrated first edition might gain illustrations in subsequent editions, and each iteration builds on the earlier narrative.

A reissue of an old text with contemporary illustrations can delight, but to get a fuller picture, we need to see the original too. Serious book collectors know this. If you look back through Charles Dickens’ publications, a rich history of illustrations leads from mid-Victorian to modern times. ’Phiz’, his early illustrator, was fabulous, but many other notable illustrators followed him.

While the publishing industry doesn’t track the ratio of illustrated to plain-text books, it does analyse a few genres. Aside from specialised fantasy editions or chapter-heading thumbnails, modern adult fiction remains nearly 100% plain print (a notable exception, however, is the Japanese ‘Light Novel’, where black-and-white illustrations are standard). Children’s books, by contrast, are 100% illustrated.

The Egyptians, Greeks, and Persians illustrated books by hand, painting images onto papyrus and vellum, but illustrated books were rare. A different print technology emerged in 3rd-century China, using carved woodblocks, but Europe didn’t catch up until the 15th century.

Johannes Gutenberg’s invention of the printing press in 15th-century Germany also popularised the use of paper (the Chinese had been using paper since 105 CE and developed movable type 400 years before Gutenberg). Early printed books, according to several academic studies, were rarely illustrated; even medieval vellum Psalters were only 15% illuminated (I have two medieval ‘Book of Hours’ pages on vellum). In the 200 years following the invention of the printing press, printers still left blank spaces for manual illumination.

Western book illustration as we know it evolved from European woodblock printing and the printing press. Woodblocks could be combined with movable type, since both were forms of relief printing, but the illustrations were often crude. A brief period of metal engraving followed, but the intaglio techniques of etching and engraving soon dominated. These methods remained popular until the 19th century.  After that, various new methods and technologies enabled quality colour printing.

In Japan, a colour-printing technique called nishiki-e used many different woodblocks. This produced very high-quality artwork.

The Victorian era is considered to be the ‘golden age of printing’, with its proliferation of technological breakthroughs and mechanised papermaking. And at the same time, literacy rose significantly; printed works were no longer the preserve of the wealthy, but a mass-market commodity.

The Victorian era also saw the rise of the ‘Arts & Crafts’ movement, a rebellion against the Industrial Revolution and new technology. Figures like the socialist William Morris championed a return to handcrafts, and his Kelmscott Press (1891) produced some of the finest books ever printed. He believed that mass-produced books were becoming increasingly shoddy, and he was right.

This gave rise to the Private Press movement, which produced high-quality books that are desirable to modern collectors. I am lucky enough to possess a few, but sadly, no Kelmscott Press.  Victorian and early 20th-century private presses included Doves, Ashendene, Vale, Essex House, Eragny, and Cuala. A little later came the Golden Cockerel Press, Nonesuch Press, and Gregynog. Many others are worth collecting too. The illustrations and typography in these finely printed books are frequently exceptional.

Some Illustrators whose works I have collected

Rex Whistler: A brilliant painter, muralist, illustrator and book designer. His masterpiece is the illustrations for ‘Gulliver’s Travels’ in the Cresset Press (1930). His style was elegant and fine Rococo (ornate but not too busy). He was highly in demand by publishers like Faber and Faber. Sadly, he was among the first to die after the Normandy Landings. I always made a point of grabbing any book featuring his illustrations or dust jacket designs. His brother Lawrence was a famous glass engraver.

– – – – – –

Richard ‘Dicky’ Doyle: A famous Victorian illustrator who started as an errand boy. He designed the original Punch cover and its masthead. He illustrated works by many Victorian authors, including Charles Dickens, William Makepeace Thackeray, John Ruskin, Andrew Lang, and Leigh Hunt. He was fascinated by birds and fairies, and that fascination ran in the family.  His brothers were all artists too, and in brother Charles Doyle’s case, the obsession with fairies (and fear of birds) drove him into an asylum. Charles son was Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, who wrote Sherlock Holmes. Arthur also believed in fairies (and spiritualism) and was duped by a photograph of fairies taken by two young girls (they later confessed it was not real).

– – – – – –

Walter Crane: 1845-1915: An anti-authoritarian democratic socialist who illustrated children’s books and adult literature, and designed socialist pamphlets and union periodicals. He was president of the Arts Workers Guild and later the Arts & Crafts Society. He was also Director of Design at the Manchester School of Art and the Royal College of Art. Along with Kate Greenaway and Randolph Caldicot, he set the standard for children’s illustrated literature.

Before Crane and Greenaway, children’s books were mostly morality tales. Although Crane came out of the Arts & Crafts movement, he also studied Japanese and medieval art. Equally important was his apprenticeship as an engraver, which shaped his approach to design and led him to reject its soulless, mechanised processes. Publishers regarded him as a genius, and he was close friends with Oscar Wilde, William Morris, and George Bernard Shaw. He wrote influential books on design, advocating a move away from the then current obsession with filling every available inch of space.

– – – – – –

In an earlier post, I mentioned the Leighton Dynasty of binders, printers and engravers. I am descended from the founder, George Leighton, who printed the ‘London Illustrated News’. The Leightons pioneered a colour-printing technique that soon came to dominate the industry. Another member of that Leighton family, a cousin, was Edmund Blair Leighton, a Pre-Raphaelite painter and Academician. His paintings illustrated books, including George Eliot’s. Several of his illustrations are in the Auckland Art Gallery collection.

– – – – – –

A proper examination of book illustration would require a deeper analysis than I am qualified to deliver. What I have covered here offers a personal perspective and a glance. I may look at the topic again in the future, and if so, comics, children’s books and related areas like book plates could be the focus.

And here in New Zealand, we have a rich tradition of illustration too—the ethnographic art of the explorers (e.g. Buller’s Birds) and the botanical artists. We also have a rich history of cartoons, newspaper illustrations and school journals. And most importantly, the picture book explosion of the mid-20th century, which saw a proliferation of extraordinary children’s books. We have produced many fine engravers, but four wood engravers and etchers stand out: E. Mervyn Taylor, John Buckland Wright, Leo Bensemann and Rona Dyer.

So while I have illustrated books from many eras, my interest focused on a hundred years: mid-Victorian to mid-20th century. It was instinctive and based on my tastes, but there was another reason—the switch from letterpress to offset printing after the 1950s. Economic and logistical factors drove the move to offset lithography: speed, cost, and safety. It’s hard to argue against the change, but something substantial was lost: aesthetics.

Letterpress has been with us in various forms since Gutenberg, but I’m not just talking about nostalgia. When you ink and press text in a galley, something special happens. A crisp, fine impression forms, and in fine printing, you can see and feel it. Letterpress is not a chemical process like offset.  We are talking aesthetics, and the finest private press printers have always used and still use letterpress.

When I was a boy, my friends and I collected stamps. They were crisp and typographically beautiful, and the colours were marvellous. After the 1950s, stamp collecting declined, and I blame offset techniques. I had no interest in collecting the ugly objects that proliferated after the 1950s. Thomas De la Rue pioneered stamp letterpress technology and printed stamps for 150 colonies. Rivals like the French Atelier des Timbres-Poste produced iconic stamps like the Sage and Sower series. The stamps of the first 100 years were tiny works of art, but they were replaced by bland, busy ephemera.

And while I have many books with nice modern illustrations, they appeal to me less. I will let the pictures I post illustrate my preference.

Sources referred to and Illustrators pictured: ‘Walter Crane as a Book Illustrator’ by Rodney Engen, ‘Walter Crane, Artist, Designer & Socialist’ by Greg Smith, ‘Line & Form’ by Rex Whistler, ‘The Laughter & the Urn: a life of Rex Whistler’ by Laurence Whistler, ‘Illustrators of the 1800s’ by Forest Reid, ‘The Art of the Printed Book’ by Blumenthal, ‘Millers Collecting Books’ by Catherine Porter. Illustrations, in order from left to right where applicable: ‘Fox & Crane’ – Walter Crane, ‘May Pole’ – Crane, ‘Ali Baba’ – Crane, ‘Gulliver’ (two plates) – Rex Whistler, ‘Desert Islands’ – Rex Whistler, ‘Scarecrow’ – Rex Whistler, ‘A Jar of Honey ‘ Richard Doyle (2), ‘Mr Birchell’s First Visit’ – Thomas Rowlandson, ‘Your Passports’ – 19th-century French, possibly Maris, ‘The Lost God Pan’ – H J Ford, ‘Book of Job’ (two plates) – Herbert Granville Fell, ‘Mosque’ – Frank Brangwyn,  ‘Robinson Crusoe’, artist unattributed but I found reference to this 19th-century Warne edition in a Dutch catalogue – almost certainly Ernst Henri Griset. (Dickens) ‘Bleak House’ – Phiz, ‘Mr. Pickwick’ – Phiz, ‘The Old Curiosity Shop’ – C Green. ‘early 1400s Book of Hours illumination’.

‘I have made this letter longer than usual, as I have not had time to make it shorter’ – Blaise Pascal

‘Every morning my train is eleven minutes late. This is infuriating. This morning I took a later train. That was also eleven minutes late. This also was infuriating. Why don’t you re-time all your trains to arrive eleven minutes late? – then they will all be on time’.  – Reginald Iolanthe Perrin

‘On the 24th of August, about one in the afternoon, my mother desired him [her brother] to observe a cloud which appeared of a very unusual size and shape.’  Pliny the Younger to Tacitus – referring to the Pompeii eruption – 108 BC

Some of the earliest events in recorded history are found in letters.  A letter, by definition, is a communication between two people (or to a group), using an intermediary as the means of delivery. Libraries, mine included, have books full of people’s letters; usually those of famous writers or historical figures, but some of us, the lucky ones, have old family letters.

Although I was a voracious reader in my youth, I was a terrible letter writer. I attribute this to several factors: my embarrassingly childish handwriting and the fact that I was made to write thank-you letters to my relatives (before I could play with my presents). My parents were the kindest and most tolerant people imaginable, but in this, they were immovable. As a result, I foolishly concluded that letter writing was a form of child torture.

My mother, in a secretarial capacity, would transcribe my father’s outward mail, complaining that he should have been a doctor with such an illegible scrawl. In my family, the further back you go, the better the handwriting gets. 

To the historian and genealogist, a trove of letters is an invaluable source of information. Old letters should be examined with care, because a shared confidence, written long ago, can become a revelation to modern eyes.   

Horace Walpole, the dilettante son of an 18th-century British Prime Minister, was a prolific letter writer. He wrote letters for posterity, and with that in mind, he chose each recipient carefully. He selected them from across the political spectrum and from a range of geographical locations. And as he learned of Europe’s affairs from them, they learned of England’s affairs from him. On receiving a reply, he would attach it to a copy of his letter, and file both by date (and if he’d forgotten to keep a copy of his outward letter, he would send another letter asking for it to be returned).

This was more than just a friendly exchange of letters. He elicited the information with a view to publication and to provide a historical record for later generations. His letters are now a prime source of information about 18th-century politics and scandals. He is the only example that comes to mind of a man of letters whose occupation was ‘true to label’.  I have a complete set of Horace Walpole’s letters, all 16 volumes of them. (edited by Paget Toynbee).     

The history of letters is the history of writing, and they are valued because they are often unfiltered. Business letters, though, can be dreadfully uninteresting, but they do improve with age, especially if written in cuneiform. The Egyptians, Persians, Greeks, Phoenicians and the Romans all wrote letters. Many have survived, the Pauline letters being the most famous. 

The ancient historian Hellanicus credits Queen Atossa of Persia (500 BC) with inventing letter writing. While there’s no way to verify his claim, it’s a lovely story, and I like to think that a woman began the practice. Moved by that story, Edmund Gosse, a ‘man of letters’ with a fondness for cats, named his favourite feline Atossa. She would sit regally beside him on a cushioned chair as he wrote.

In my library there are many books written by ‘men of letters’ like Gosse. It is a term seldom used today as it sounds a bit pompous and sexist. It did not, however, mean that there was a class of men who spent every waking moment writing to people (Horace Walpole excepted); it merely meant that they were literary scholars of note. 

Novelists often weave correspondence into the narrative too, and in many cases, the entire novel can be an exchange of letters. These epistolary novels came about in the 18th Century and quickly gained popularity. Some of the more famous examples are Samual Richardson’s ‘Pamela’, John Cleland’s erotic novel ‘Fanny Hill’, and ‘Les Liaisons Dangereuses’ by Choderlos de Laclos. A more recent example, and one bibliophiles are fond of, is ’84 Charring Cross Road’ by Helene Hanff. 

The Cross-Hatched Victorian Letters

In a small room, adjacent to my library, sits a lacquered wooden case. It is not in the best condition; the corners are chipped, and the interior silk compartments are woefully detached, but when it’s opened, old family wills and other documents spill out. Under them, in disarray, are hundreds of old letters, most written in beautiful copper-plate script. 

The writing box belonged to my great-grandmother Mary Louise. She died when I was young, but she left behind lots of photographs, assorted memorabilia and interesting stories. We lived in Clevedon village at the time, and she would join my family on shopping excursions to Papakura (a small country town then). On one such visit she said despairingly, ‘Papakura gets more like London every day’. She was a keen correspondent, and her letters take us back to the heart of the Victorian era. As a child, she was called Marie (as in Marie Antoinette). 

Writing boxes were commonplace in the 1800s, but few survive today. They survive in our house along with old sea chests and other such receptacles. They survive because our forebears loved history and the receptacles were stories in themselves. My family were always collectors – which is to say, history hoarders. 

Many of the letters in the case are cross-hatched, and that style of writing, along with triple hatching, can defeat modern archivists; and as I was to learn, defeat open language AI, too. For the agile minds of Victorian women, cross-hatched writing presented no such challenge. This was common practice in the Victorian era, because paper was scarce and because postage was determined by weight. Because it’s hard to read a cypher over someone’s shoulder, sisters could exchange confidences with a degree of privacy. 

The readable letters are often affectionate and bursting with news. One letter from a friend reads like an excerpt from a Jane Austen novel. It concerns Mary’s upcoming marriage and begins, ‘My dear Mary, you must think Sarah and I the meanest of creatures… but we have suffered a loss of funds, and as our affairs are not yet settled, we have not a penny to spend. I regret that you are so far away, as I should have liked to see your pretty things. 

The letter and the envelope are black-edged, which signals bereavement. The black edging warns those of delicate sensibilities that there’s distressing news inside. That particular letter made only a vague reference to such an event – the mention of settling our affairs.

Mary Louise Phillips was born in Paris, but spent her childhood in London. She arrived in New Zealand with her mother Frances Ann Codner Phillips (nee Ford) on the barque Fern Glen. She turned 12 the day after disembarking from a 101-day voyage. Her father George Newell Phillips preceded them. 

Many of her New Zealand letters date from 1884, when she was studying to be a ‘pupil’ teacher. Her father was head teacher at a Thames high school, and while he taught in Thames, Mary’s mother Frances, terrified by the prospect of living in a gold mining town with 140 hotels, set up house in Ponsonby Road, Auckland. 

Among Mary’s letters are those to (and from) her mother, sister, father, friends in England and a persistent suitor; and intriguingly, letters from a London solicitor named Alexander Pope. The solicitor’s letter concerns a bequest to her made by a Miss S B Evens of Trafalgar Square – which, according to Mr Pope, required several lengthy cases in the Chancery Court to settle. 

When I read that, I immediately thought of ‘Bleak House’. Was the eponymously named Alexander Pope of Grecian Chambers a version of Mr Jarndyce? After the drawn-out Chancery Court proceedings, the remainder of the bequest amounted to €325. As Mary’s grandmother was named Ann Evens, the bequest likely came from an Aunt. 

The names Evens and Ford are both associated with the ‘mail packet’ trade, and to a related family tragedy. Seeing Miss Evens’ name on the will had triggered a memory, and I knew where I’d seen the name before. Inside a Victorian leather calling card case. I carefully teased out the cards, and after spreading them out and doing a little research, things came together. The names connected families in the shipping trade and the Trafalgar Square address clinched it. 

No. 60 was the business address that captains and the merchants used.

Mail Ships and the Victorian ‘Packet Trade’

Captain Ford was Mary’s grandfather. He was a master mariner and cloth merchant. One of his earlier commands was the merchantman Thomas Laurie, a 300-ton barque-rigged ship which took the first lot of direct mail from Van Diemen’s Land (Tasmania) to London.

His next command was a barque named Memnon. It left Liverpool in 1841 and foundered on the rocks just outside of Bombay harbour. The Bombay Gazette states that all hands survived, but the entire cargo of fine cotton was lost (Captain Ford died months later of hypothermia – perhaps during a later wreck). 

The number of ships that went down at that time was astounding. One report blames the ‘packet trade’ for this. Packet sailing vessels took terrible risks to meet postal schedules, and were seldom fitted out as well as a naval ship or a dedicated merchantman. 

The Mail Packets were a specific type of vessel. They followed set routes and adhered to strict timetables. Because the mail services were poorly remunerated, the ships carried cargo and passengers as well, and due to the quick turnaround, often ignored adverse weather warnings. British ‘packet ships’ were covered by the Postage Act of 1779, which legally obliged captains to deliver the mail to the postmaster at their port of destination, in a timely fashion. 

I have lots of books which reference the packet ships, and many writers complained about them. Rudyard Kipling wrote about them with fondness, as did Somerset Maugham, but Byron moaned about the cramped conditions and wrote a satirical poem about the experience. Dickens was also unimpressed, and Conrad thought them inferior craft, while Samuel Clemens (Mark Twain), who was a pilot on river packet boats, loved them. Daniel Defoe (1660- 1731) wrote the first book featuring packet ships. 

In New Zealand, inland mail services by train and road did not supersede the sea-mail services until the late 19th century. Practically all overseas mail came by sea until the 1940s, after which Air Mail gained in popularity. In 1914, 110 million letters, 5 million postcards and numerous packages and newspapers arrived by sea. 

With 1914  in mind, I will include photographs of three items from the writing box. Letters from (and about) Mervyn Leigh Waters. They relate to the 1914-1918 war and the Gallipoli campaign. 

The first is an appallingly clinical letter from the NZ Military Records office, received by my great-grandfather in 1916. It informed him that his son Mervyn had been killed in Palestine. In addition, I will add a letter sent by Mervyn,  just before his death. Owing to vagaries of mail at the time, the letter announcing that he had been killed in action arrived before his postcard saying that he was in good health.

I hope that we will continue writing letters, and write better ones than the NZ military wrote, but I fear it’s a dying art. The last words on letter writing are about Mary’s father, George Newell Phillips, who, according to a newspaper item, became a public speaker after he retired. A local paper praises his comedic turns of phrase and writes that he taught the art of letter writing long into his retirement. And the last, and somewhat disparaging words about packet mail ships go to Joseph Conrad.

‘three hundred miles beyond the end of telegraph cables and mail-boat lines, the haggard utilitarian lies of our [European] civilisation wither and die’

                                                                                               Joseph Conrad

Photographs, items and books referenced: ‘The Letters of Pliny’ trans. Melmouth, ‘The Faber Book of Letters’ ed.Felix Pryor, ‘Letters of Travel’ by Rudyard Kipling, Traffics and Discoveries’ by Rudyard Kipling, ‘Lord Jim’ by Joseph Conrad, ‘The World Over’ by William Somerset Maugham, ‘About Ships’ by Syd Nicholas, ‘Pamela’ by Samual Richardson, ‘Bleak House’ by Charles Dickens, ‘84 Charing Cross Road’ by Helene Hanff, ‘Fanny Hill’ by John Cleland, ‘Liaisons Dangereuses’ by Choderlos de Laclos, ‘The Letters of Horace Walpole’ ed. Paget Toynbee, ‘The Bombay Gazette’, a shipping report from The True Briton (1808), three WWI letters concerning Mervyn Waters, various letters to and from Mary Louise Mellsop, the settlement of a will sent by Alexander Pope, solicitor, the Victorian writing box, portable inkwell (18th century), pen nibs and case, Mary Louise Mellsop.

Part Two: link to part one here

“The whole series of my life appeared to me as a dream; I sometimes doubted if indeed it were all true, for it never presented itself to my mind with the force of reality.”

Mary Shelley – From Frankenstein

It was bitterly cold when I headed for Auckland Airport, and I was glad to be escaping a bleak Winter. Happily, my destination was Geneva, which was experiencing a particularly warm Summer. A summer in stark contrast to the one in 1816; a time of crop failures, violent electrical storms and icy cold. It was not known then, but we know now, that the Tambora eruption in the Dutch East Indies (Indonesia) was responsible. It is regarded by volcanologists as the biggest volcanic event in human history and is estimated to have killed 90,000 people. Across Europe, people huddled by the fireside, and at the Villa Diodati, on the shores of Lake Geneva, ’Frankenstein; The Modern Prometheus’ was born.

Biographies and histories are the best travel guides so, as I was headed into Shelley territory, I armed myself with a few paperbacks from my library: Peter Quennell’s ‘Byron in Italy’, Muriel Spark’s ‘Mary Shelley’, Edward Trelawny’s ‘Records of Shelley, Byron and the Author’ and Henry James’s ‘The Aspern Papers’. The prospect of doing some literary sleuthing was invigorating; a practice otherwise known as stalking dead authors. 

My partner Darien (along with Ken Douglas, Roslyn Noonan and Paul Tolich) was a Council of Trade Unions delegate to the ILO (UN International Labour Organisation). I flew to join her in Geneva as it was an opportunity too good to miss. So while Darien worked, I explored, and as I roamed through the city and neighbouring countryside, I crossed paths with the ghosts of Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Voltaire, Sherlock Holmes and Edward Gibbon. I have a fondness for them all, but the encounters that interested me the most were those associated with the Shelleys. 

The Hotel d’Angleterre is located in the old town, but when I located it, I was disappointed. What I saw didn’t match my expectations. It was the wrong Hotel d’Angleterre. The Hotel I was seeking was located further around the lake in beautiful Lausanne. 

——————–

There, in 1816, Percy Shelley and Lord George Noel Gordon Byron met for the first time. The meeting resulted from a plan hatched by Mary Shelley’s step-sister, Claire Clairmont. Byron was surprised by the encounter and soon warmed to the Shelleys, but he was not so pleased to see Claire, who was pregnant by him. He and Claire had had a brief fling in London, which he regarded as a mere dalliance and had no desire to rekindle. 

Byron had left England earlier, hoping to leave his scandals behind. Never one to travel light, he employed Dr John Polidori as his personal physician. Polidori had recently qualified as a doctor but could not yet practice medicine. He was glad of the post as he was desperately short of funds. The role proved to be far from the godsend he imagined, though. Byron made him the butt of cruel jokes at every opportunity and, as a servant, he couldn’t respond. He was sensitive and had a miserable time. As Lady Caroline Lamb so famously observed, Byron was ‘mad, bad and dangerous to know’. In modern parlance, he could behave like an entitled prick. 

Shortly after the meeting in Lausanne, Byron moved across the lake to the Villa Diodati, and there a parlour game was proposed. Everyone would devise a ghost story. The Frankenstein story and the first Vampire novel were hatched as a result. Some have speculated that Dr Polidori’s potions accelerated the process, but no documentary evidence supports that. It is worth noting, though, that opium and cannabis tinctures were widely used by the Romantics, and in fact by the general populace at the time. 

——————–

On the day that I set out for Villa Diodati, the streets were almost deserted. Uncharacteristically, the Genevans had abandoned work en masse to watch the Football World Cup final and, because it was blazing hot, walking soon lost its appeal.

When I boarded the bus to Cologny, the only other passenger demanded to know my nationality and why I wasn’t watching the football.  ‘I’m from New Zealand’, I replied, but he cut me off before I could answer the second question. ‘Ah yes’, he said, shaking his head sadly, ‘that explains it, that certainly explains it’.

In 1816, the Villa Diodati was in the countryside, and approached by a long carriageway. Now, it was nestled among the houses of the comfortably off, and to my dismay, was undergoing repairs. I sneaked past a ‘do not enter’ sign, and hidden from sight, found a good vantage point. There, I took a photograph and sat awhile, looking at the upper story windows and imagining the goings-on there 200 years ago (the photograph added below).

I’m not sure how long I sat there daydreaming, but a sudden electrical storm brought me to my senses. The storm had appeared mysteriously out of sunny skies, hiding behind the Juras until it was ready to pounce, a reminder of 1816. 

The goings-on in the Villa are well documented, and what occurred there has been the subject of biographies, novels, plays, movies and even a Dr Who episode. Obsessives hunt down such locations, the places where the writers were inspired, hoping to find a portal, attempting to see through their eyes.

——————–

Apart from scaring each other with stories, Byron and Shelley (Percy) hired a small craft and toured the lake for a week. We also know that Shelley almost drowned just off Lausanne.  Shelley, who could not swim a stroke, was obsessed with sailing craft. Nothing appeared to deter him.

While exploring the Château de Chillon, near Montreux, the pair heard a story about a patriotic monk who’d been imprisoned for defying the Savoy rulers. Byron’s poem The Prisoner of Chillon is one of his most famous.

“They chain’d us each to a column stone,

And we were three—yet, each alone;

We could not move a single pace,

We could not see each other’s face,”

Moved by the story, and noticing the chain marks on the pillars, Byron carved his initials there. 

——————–

In Lausanne, the pair broke off a sprig of acacia and cast it into the lake, in memory of Edward Gibbon. When I visited Lausanne, to the puzzlement of the man who’d driven me there, I too threw a sprig of acacia into the lake. I suspect that he thought it part of some arcane trade union ritual. 

He was an employer’s representative, and I enjoyed his company. He told me that he collected Oscar Peterson records and was a little embarrassed by the admission. He delighted me too, when he phoned home to ask his wife how you used a clothes iron.

———————

The Shelleys returned to England in Autumn, having been away for only 6 weeks. Mary had not only begun ‘Frankenstein: The Modern Prometheus’, but also put the finishing touches to her travel journal. It was published anonymously on her return and was titled, ‘History of a Six Week Tour’. The publishers had refused to put her name to it. Shelley, meanwhile, was instructed by his publisher to revise a poem (who demanded 49 alterations). The new title was ‘Revolt of Islam’. What had been written as a harsh critique of European political systems was disguised as something else. Publishers in Regency times lived in fear of libel suits. Ironically, the word Islam appears nowhere in the poem. 

Numerous publishers rejected Mary’s Frankenstein novel, too. In the end, reluctantly, a small publisher relented. The firm agreed to publish on the condition that Mary was not mentioned as the author. They also required a preface written by Percy. This created the impression that her husband was the author. 

The hypocrisy of the age was breathtaking, as the scandals of their elopement had barely touched Percy’s reputation, but left a black mark on hers. 500 copies were issued of that first edition, and in recent years, a copy sold for $1.17 million USD. 

After the Shelleys’ (and Claire’s) departure, Byron headed south to Italy, with the fate of Claire’s baby as yet undecided. 

 ——————–

In Venice, Byron fell for the countess Teresa Guiccioli, who was already married. Because of his relationship with the countess (and her family), fresh intrigues and scandals soon engulfed him (with the Pope intervening at one point). The countess was ordered by the authorities to return to her father’s home in Ravenna, and Byron followed, beginning work on the ‘Don Juan’ cantos.

The countess’s family, the Gambas, were members of a secret society (the Carbonari). Along with other nobles, they were plotting to overthrow the Habsburg rulers in Vienna. 

The coming insurrection, while increasingly a problem for Byron, did little to spoil a welcome period of domesticity (rumours of an assassination plot against him never materialised). The Gamba family, who had sided with Byron over the relationship, were now increasingly under pressure. 

 ——————–

In 1818, the Shelleys, their two maids plus Claire and her baby Alba, headed for Italy. The next four years are referred to as their ‘nomad years’, and they were also the most productive for Shelley and Byron. For Mary, there was joy, hardship and unimaginable grief. She lost two children during their travels, and her beloved Shelley was later drowned in the Gulf of La Spezia. 

As the Shelleys and their entourage moved from town to town, they made friends, and the Pisan Circle gathered. Among them were Byron, Jane and Edward Williams, Maria and John Gisborne and the self-proclaimed pirate Edward Trelawny. Although some earlier aspects of Trelawny’s autobiography are regarded with a degree of cynicism, it is well worth reading (see bibliography). He is central to Mary’s story too.

Meanwhile, sensing the futility of remaining in Ravenna, Byron asked the Shelleys to find him a place in Pisa, and he sent the countess ahead to assist with decorations. When he toured, he took his furniture with him (and numerous animals). It was a supersized version of today’s glamping. Shelley, who lived a spartan existence, felt that the taint of aristocracy was still evident in Byron.

Once settled in the Palazzo Lanfranchi, the best residence in downtown Pisa, he and Shelley decided to invite Leigh Hunt and his family to join them. The plan to set up a radical newspaper titled The Liberal had originally involved Thomas Moore but, when that fell through, Shelley suggested his friend Hunt. 

Disagreements soon broke out over the fate of Byron’s and Claire’s daughter Alba (now called Allegra). While Shelley, who had been raising her with his own children, was happy to continue that arrangement, Byron had a convent in mind for her (she died there at age 12). 

——————–

When we left Switzerland, we picked up the Shelleys’ trail as they moved across Italy and we went where they went; principally, Rome, Venice, Pisa, Florence, Lucca and Viareggio. In Pisa we saw the Palazzo Lanfrachi (now called the Palazzo Toscanelli), and on a beach just north of Viareggio, Shelley’s funeral site, I scooped a portion of sand and placed it inside a film canister. 

——————–

The months preceding Shelley’s death were miserable for Mary. She nearly lost her life after a miscarriage and struggled with severe postpartum depression. The living conditions at the Villa Magni, near Lerici, were intolerable. The house lacked amenities and was little more than a fisherman’s shack.

It was a strange time for Shelley too, as he’d been experiencing frightening hallucinations, but he cheered up at the prospect of seeing his friend Hunt again. Hunt had just arrived in Italy and was waiting in Livorno with Byron. Keen to start the ‘Liberal’ journal, Shelley prepared his new boat and set sail for Livorno with Edward Williams. The craft, named Don Juan, had been made especially for him, but the open design was unsuited for ocean-going. On arrival, Shelley, Hunt and Byron firmed up on their plans and agreed to start as soon as possible. 

The reunion put Shelley in a more positive frame of mind, and with Williams and a boat boy, he sailed back towards Lerici. Hours after leaving port, the Don Juan was lost in a violent storm which swept across the Gulf of La Spezia. Shelley’s body was washed up 10 days later, and could only be identified by his clothing and the copy of Keats’ poems in a jacket pocket.

Trelawny built a pyre on the beach and cremated Shelley’s body, removing the poet’s heart from the embers. He later gave the heart to Hunt to preserve. A famous picture by Fournier depicts Trelawny, Hunt and Byron standing by the pyre, with Mary on her knees praying. The depiction is incorrect. Byron left shortly after the pyre was lit; Hunt had not yet arrived; Mary did not attend the funeral. The poet’s ashes were later interred in Rome, and his heart eventually returned to England with Mary.

Fournier’s depiction underscores a problem for Shelley scholars. Who among his contemporaries and early biographers can be believed? As biographer Edmund Blunden points out; what his friends, Medwin, Hogg, Peacock and Trelawny wrote can’t be accepted without reservation. Adding to the problem are the many literary forgeries created later. Figures like these become mythologised and, with that, the truth blurs. 

A Tory paper in London wrote this epitaph: ‘Shelley, the writer of some infidel poetry, has been drowned; now he will know whether there is God or no’. Leigh Hunt composed the epitaph for his grave in Rome. It reads: ‘Cor Cordium’ (heart of hearts) and quotes from Shakespeare’s Ariel in The Tempest. ‘Nothing of him that doth fade / But doth suffer a sea change / Into something rich and strange’. 

‘He was soon borne away by the waves and lost in darkness and distance’

                                                       Mary Shelley (the last lines from ‘Frankenstein’)

Footnotes and sources: Mary, who had no desire to remain at the spartan Villa Magni, took a house with the Hunts in Genoa. Both being poor, they shared the rent. Byron took a Palazzo nearby, but before long, he tired of the Hunts’ ‘unruly tribe’ and abandoned the ‘Liberal’ project. Mary stayed in Genoa for another year, surviving on small amounts of transcribing work. Hunt stayed on in Italy for three years, writing essays and translating texts, until a lawsuit forced him back to England. A year after Shelley’s demise, Byron travelled to Greece to fight for Greek emancipation, where he died of a mosquito bite. Claire, footloose, roamed the earth until her old age, eventually settling in Venice. 

‘Shelley’ by Francis Thompson, ‘Shelley: A Life Story’ by Edmund Blunden, ‘Byron, Shelley, Hunt & The Liberal’ by William Marshall, ‘Byron, Shelley and their Pisan Circle’ by C L Cline, ‘Byron’s Life, Letters and Journals’ pub. by John Murray, ‘Shelley, Days With the Poet’ by May Byron, ‘Don Juan’ by Byron, ‘Byron’ by Peter Quennell, ‘Byron’s poems’, ‘The Life & Letters of Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley’ by Mrs Julian Marshall, ‘An Autobiography’ by Leigh Hunt, ‘Shelley’s Poetical Works’, ‘Romantic Outlaws’ by Charlotte Gordon, ‘My Leigh Hunt Library & Letters’ by Luther Brewer, ‘Frankenstein; The Modern Prometheus’ by Mary Shelley, ‘Records of Shelley, Byron & the Author’ by Edward Trelawny. Shelley & his World by Claire Tomalin. Byron and the Shelleys by Jane Blumberg – the photographs taken by me as I travelled are: The Villa Diodati, The Chateau d’Chillon, Byron’s graffiti in the dungeon, Dante’s tomb in Ravenna.

I have often wondered who from that group I would most like to have as a dinner guest. That always brings me back to the affable, pleasant-natured, chatty Hunt. Hunt could come to dinner anytime (but I would need to keep my hands in my pockets, as Hunt was always on the lookout for money).