Allegra Kent taking ballet. After graduating, she joined the New York City Ballet in 1953 at the age of 15, and was promoted to principal in 1957. Many roles in George Balanchine's ballets were created for her, including "Seven Deadly Sins", "Ivesiana" and "Bugaku". She danced the role of Dewdrop in the 1958 Playhouse 90 telecast of Balanchine's version of "The Nutcracker". She performed in such ballets as "Serenade", "Agon" and "Dances at a Gathering". She retired in 1981, becoming a ballet teacher, and in 1997 published an autobiography, "Once a Dancer". In 2012, Kent published her first book for children, "Ballerina
Allegra Byron remarked that their toddler son William disliked Allegra, but was fond of his baby sister Clara. She saw her son's reaction to Allegra, who was no blood relation to him, as "an argument in favor of those who advocate "instinctive natural affection"." In addition, the Shelleys were constantly in debt and Mary Shelley wanted the baby to be sent to Byron and wanted her difficult and temperamental stepsister, who had too close a relationship with her husband, to leave her house. After the child's birth, Shelley wrote to Byron "of the exquisite symmetry" and beauty of "a little being whom