Percy Bysshe Shelley October. On 10December 1816 the body of Shelley's estranged wife Harriet was found in an advanced state of pregnancy, drowned in the Serpentine in Hyde Park, London. Shelley had made generous provision for Harriet and their children in his will and had paid her a monthly allowance as had her father. It is thought that Harriet, who had left her children with her sister Eliza and had been living alone under the name of Harriet Smith, mistakenly believed herself to have been abandoned by her new lover, 36-year-old Lieutenant Colonel Christopher Maxwell, who had been deployed abroad, after a landlady
The Life of Percy Bysshe Shelley of Shelley's life that Hogg had only learned about secondhand. The Shelley family helped him by providing Percy Shelley's papers to him for use in his research. Percy Shelley's sisters Helen and Margaret also contributed accounts of childhood memories involving their brother. Hogg was known for the strength and clarity of his memory, and was able to recall minor details from the time that he spent with Percy Shelley. The initial plan was to release a four-volume work and the first two volumes of the book were published in 1858 by Edward Moxon. The text of "Shelley at Oxford" was