1792:
§August 4th: Shelley is born at Field Place, Warnham, near Horsham.
1793:
§January: Louis XVI is beheaded.
§February 1st: War breaks out between France and England; it runs pretty much continually (the Napoleonic Wars) for the next 23 years.
§Godwin's book, Political Justice appears.
1798:
§Coleridge with Wordsworth brought out Lyrical Ballads.
§August: Nelson destroys Napoleon's fleet at the Battle of the Nile.
1802:
§Shelley enters Sion House Academy, Ilseworth, near Brentford.
1804:
§Passing on from Sion House Academy, Shelley went to Eton.
1805:
§October 21st: Nelson's victory at Trafalgar: By this event, both the French and Spanish navies were annihilated, and the danger of any invasion, which all of England had anticipated, passed.
§In December of 1805, the Battle of Austerlitz took place (Austerlitz is a place located in modern day Czechoslovakia). Napoleon decisively defeated the armies of Russia and Austria, each with its emperor at its head.
§London, Morning Post, June 15th, 1805: "The shop of Lardner and Co., the corner of the Albany, Piccadilly, is illuminated every evening with Carbonated Hydrogen Gas, obtained from the decomposition of Coals. It produces a much more brilliant light than either oil or tallow, and proves, in a striking manner, the advantages to be derived from so valuable an application."
1807:
§Robert Fulton's Clermont proves the practicality of steam power for river craft.
1808:
§The Hunt brothers involve themselves in a new journalistic effort, a political weekly, the Examiner.
§In support of a Spanish rising, in July, Arthur Wellesley (later to become known as the Duke of Wellington) leads the first small British force of 9000 men into the Peninsula of Spain; a gate into the hostile fortress of Napoleonic Europe.
1809:
§John Murray founds the Quarterly Review, with William Gifford as its editor.
1810:
§George III ill; his son, the Duke of Wales (1762-1830) takes over as the Prince Regent; in 1820, on his father's death, he becomes George IV.
§April: Shelley's juvenile work, a Gothic novel, Zastrozzi, apparently with the assistance of his father, is published.
§September: Publishes with his sister Elizabeth, Original poetry by Victor and Cazire.
§October: Shelley enters University College, Oxford.
1811:
§William Hazlitt listed the Questions of the Day: "Our colonial policy, prison discipline, the state of the Hulks, agricultural distress, commerce and manufactures, the Bullion question, the Catholic question, the Bourbons or the Inquisition, 'domestic treason, [and] foreign levy'" ("Mr. Brougham -- Sir F. Burdett.")
§January: The Hunt brothers are acquitted of seditious libel.
§Shelley publishes and disseminates a pamphlet entitled, The Necessity of Atheism.
§March: Shelley is expelled from Oxford.
§Shelley takes lodging in Poland Street, London with his friend Hogg.
§Spends time in Wales.
§August 28th: Elopes with Harriet and marries at Edinburgh.
§Travels to York, Keswick, Dublin, Isle of Man, Wales and Lynmouth.
§November: Goes to live at Keswick; meets Southey.
1812:
§January: Opens correspondence with Godwin.
§February 12 -- April 4th: Shelley travels to Ireland and distributes his Address to the Irish People.
§June -- August: At Lynmouth; works at Queen Mab.
§October: Meets Godwin at London.
1813:
§In England 13 "Luddites" are hung at the York Assizes.
§February 3rd: The Hunt brothers are convicted of libeling the Prince Regent and are sent off to prison for two years.
§News comes to England of Napoleon's retreat from Moscow and his struggle to retain hold of central Europe.
§During forty days in May and June, the British troops drive the French armies over the Pyrenees and out of Spain; Napoleon's back is broken by the military and diplomatic actions of Wellington and Castlereagh.
§Southey becomes Poet Laureate and is so until 1843.
§June: Shelley's daughter is born.
§Summer: Queen Mab is published.
§July -- October: At Bracknell, Berkshire.
§October -- December: At Edinburgh.
1814:
§A Refutation of Deism is published.
§March: Remarries Harriet at London (St. George's, Hanover).
§April: Paris is captured and Bonaparte abdicates.
§July: With Mary, taking with them Claire, writes Harriet from Troyes, the three travel to France, Switzerland and the Rhine.
§Six weeks later the three return to England.
§November; Harriet delivers a son, Charles Bysshe.
1815:
§January: Grandfather, Sir Bysshe dies. Arrangements are made and henceforth Shelley is in receipt of a large annual income.
§February 3rd: The prison terms of both Hunt brothers end.
§February 22nd: Mary's first child, Clara, was born prematurely; she died on March 6th.
§March 1st, Napoleon returns from Elba and the "Hundred Days" begin.
§June 18th, The Battle of Waterloo.
§Unemployed ex-servicemen walk the streets.
§August: Takes up residence at Bishopsgate, near Windsor.
§Shelley writes Alastor, "a masterpiece in blank verse."
1816:
§January 24th: Mary's second child, William, was born.
§May: Shelley, Mary and Claire set out for Geneva; Shelley and Byron meet for the first time.
§March: Alastor is published.
§Byron writes Prisoner of Chillon.
§Shelley writes Mont Blanc and the Hymn to Intellectual Beauty.
§Mary writes Frankenstein.
§August: The three set out for England.
§Meets Hunt.
§Stays with Hunt.
§December 1st: Hunt writes in his Examiner on "Young Poets," including those now in his circle, Shelley and Keats.
§The war against the Radical Press in England heats up; Habeas Corpus Act is suspended for a whole year as a result of the Spa Fields Riot on December 16th, 1816.
§December: Harriet drowns herself in the Serpentine.
§December 30: Shelley marries Mary.
1817:
§January 13th: Claire gives birth to a child (Allegra) fathered by Byron.
§Takes house at Great Marlow on the Thames and is now in association with Leigh Hunt and his circle.
§March: A chancery decree deprives Shelley of the guardianship of his children.
§Writes Rosalind and Helen and The Revolt of Islam and (in part) Prince Athanase.
§Health deteriorates.
§September: Mary gives birth to her third child, Clara (her first was also a Clara but died within two weeks).
§October: John Gibson Lockhart, then, but age 23, at Edinburgh, with his platform being Blackwood's Magazine, a Tory magazine, fulminates against "The Cockney School of Poetry."
1818:
§January: The Revolt of Islam is published.
§March: Leaves England with Mary, Claire and children: Milan, Leghorn, Lucca.
§It is during this period that he reaches the full height of his genius.
§Claire's child sent to Lord Byron, who was living in Venice.
§Pays two separate visits to Lord Byron at Venice.
§September: Shelley and the girls are at Este.
§Daughter Clara dies.
§Being shocked at Lord Byron's way of living, writes Julian and Maddalo.
§Shelley also writes Lines among the Euganean Hills and the first act of Prometheus Unbound.
§November: Visits Rome and Pompeii, and settles in Naples.
1819:
§March 5 -- June 10: At Rome.
§Writes the second and third acts of Prometheus Unbound.
§June 7: Son William dies.
§June -- October: At a place near Leghorn.
§Writes The Cenci.
§October: Takes up residence at Florence.
§November 12th: Birth of son, Percy Florence.
§Writes A Philosophical View of Reform, The Mask of Anarchy, Peter Bell the Third, Ode to the West Wind and the third act of Prometheus Unbound.
1820:
§January: Shelley moves to Pisa.
§June: Shelley moves to Leghorn.
§Summer: A book of poems is published in which are to be found: "The Cloud," "The Skylark," "The Hymn of Pan," "Arethusa" and the "Song of Proserpine."
§August: Shelley moves to San Giuliano, near Pisa.
§Writes The Witch of Atlas and Oedipus Tyrannus.
§October: Keats, seriously ill, arrives at Italy and takes up residence at Rome.
§October 31: Shelley moves his household to a place in Pisa.
1821:
§January -- February: Writes Epipsychidion.
§February 23rd: Keats dies at Rome.
§February -- March: Shelley writes A Defence of Poetry.
§Shelley makes friends with Edward and Jane Williams.
§June: Writes one of his finest poems Adonais, an elegy on the death of Keats.
§May 8 -- October 25: Mostly at San Giuliano.
§August: Visits Byron at Ravenna.
§Autumn: Writes Hellas.
§Sends money to Hunt and invites him to Italy.
§November: The Hunt family make their first attempt to sail to Italy; but, due to stormy weather in the English Channel, the family is forced to go back ashore in England.
§October: Byron moves to Pisa.
§Shelley, Byron and Williams neighbours at Pisa.
1822:
§Trelawny joins the circle at Pisa.
§January: Shelley and Byron send money from Italy to Hunt, so, he and his family might be able to follow through on their plans to go to Italy.
§April 19th: Allegra, the five year old child of Claire's and Byron's dies.
§May 1: Together with the Williamses moves to Casa Magni, San Terenzo, on the Bay of Spezzia.
§Williams who had been in the navy teaches Shelley to sail.
§June: Shelley works on what must have been the last of his works, The Triumph.
§June 15th: Having sailed from England the Hunt family touch at Genoa; staying with the vessel, on the first of July, the family arrives at Leghorn.
§July 2nd: Shelley meets the Hunt family at Leghorn and escorts them to their new residence at Pisa (lower floor of Byron's place).
§Many stories about Shelley's strange up and down moods and his premonition of death.
§July 8th: Shelley dies as a result of a sailing accident.
