A: After Mary’s husband Percy Shelley drowned while sailing in 1822, his body was cremated on the beach with fellow Romantic poet Lord Byron looking on. As the story goes, Shelley’s heart refused to burn - at least according to Lord Byron, who admittedly was the Pinocchio of British Romantic Poetry.
So while Shelley’s cremains were buried in the Protestant cemetery in Rome, his heart was given to his wife Mary (of Frankenstein fame), who wrapped it in a copy of a poem Shelley had written - and promptly stuck it in a drawer. Sounds pretty creepy. And while it is fairly unsentimental on one hand, on the other: What are you going to do with your dead husband’s unburnable heart, anyway? Put it on display? Wrap it in a new poem every year?
So, basically it remained in storage until Mary Shelley’s death almost 30 years later. Eventually, however, it was buried in Dorset, England.
Article comments
1 - Shelby-Page
I think Mary shelley is a nice lady.
2 - shelleyfan4life
dear mental floss, my teacher thinks its bogus
3 - kelsey williams
i think that is really sick o yea i hav fat eye balls
4 - edwin Avon
I do her if still alive
5 - ADRIAN RISDON
There seems to be a slight puzzle here. Outside St Peter's Church, Bournemouth, Dorset there's a green plaque stating that the heart of the great poet is in the grave; but this does not seem to be confirmed by any inscription on the Shelley grave itself. Inside the church there are leaflets and at least one fairly scholarly short book which asserts that "amazingly" Shelley's heart is buried there. But no footnote supplying any really trustworthy source for this information. (Adrian Risdon)
6 - jasmine willams
I like mary shelley.....i like all girls in general
7 - Kjk and Sca
It was really interesting but gross!!!!!!!!!!!!
8 - millicanryland
I had always heard that she had his heart in a sachet that she tied to her waistband and wore all of her life. The heart and his ashes were buried with her.