Exoneration
from Mary W. Shelley: A Biography in Sonnets
You heard the news about Percy’s wife
several days later: Harriet had drowned
herself in the Serpentine, Hyde Park.
Heavily pregnant, she believed she’d
been abandoned a second time—by
the soldier who’d been sent abroad
and wasn’t replying to her letters. She
left a note regarding the care of her children.
You must have feared Harriet’s fate was
foreshadowing your own. How long before
Shelley—Shelley of the wandering eye—
found a new infatuation? He so easily
abandoned his wife, unmoved by her
wretchedness, adept at self-exoneration.
Ted Morrissey has published several novels, including Mrs Saville, a sequel to Mary Shelley's Frankenstein and a winner of the Manhattan Book Award. He co-hosts the monthly podcast A Lesson before Writing.