Percy Bysshe Shelley Hunt, was later asked by John Bedford Leno whether he preferred Shelley or Byron as a man. He replied: On 8 July 1822, less than a month before his thirtieth birthday, Shelley drowned in a sudden storm on the Gulf of Spezia while returning from Leghorn (Livorno) to Lerici in his sailing boat, the "Don Juan." He was returning from having set up "The Liberal" with the newly arrived Leigh Hunt. The name "Don Juan", a compliment to Byron, was chosen by Edward John Trelawny, a member of the Shelley–Byron Pisan circle. However, according to Mary Shelley's testimony, Shelley changed
Percy Bysshe Shelley refused to forward his letters to her. On 30December 1816, barely three weeks after Harriet's body was recovered, Shelley and Mary Godwin were married. The marriage was intended partly to help secure Shelley's custody of his children by Harriet and partly to placate Godwin, who had coldly refused to speak to his daughter for two years, and who now received the couple. The courts, however, awarded custody of Shelley and Harriet's children to foster parents, on the grounds that Shelley was an atheist. The Shelleys took up residence in the village of Marlow, Buckinghamshire, where a friend of Percy's, Thomas