As I discussed in the first blog post in this series about Percy Bysshe Shelley, he told his cousin and Lord Byron that he'd been pursued by a beautiful lady. Here is a synopsis from an early biography:
"According to the account which Shelley gave to Byron and Medwin, he re-encountered in Naples the married lady who had proffered her love to him in 1816. She... informed him of the persistent though hopeless affection with which she had tracked his footsteps." -- A Memoir of Shelley, by William Michael Rossetti, (1886)

   Whether or not there really was a mysterious lady, there was a mysterious baby girl.
Something—nobody knows what exactly—happened in Naples in the winter of 1818 concerning Shelley and a baby girl. There is some question about how much of the whole story Mary Shelley ever knew, and she later suppressed the few details that were available.
   During the winter of 1818/19 Shelley was living in Naples with his wife (Mary Shelley, the author of Frankenstein,) his wife's step-sister Claire, who was possibly pregnant, and a pregnant nursemaid. By the time he left Naples in February, he had taken financial responsibility for a new-born baby girl. 
   Until 1936, Shelley scholars had no information about the identity and even the confirmed existence of the little girl that Shelley referred to in a few surviving letters as his 'Neapolitan ward.'
   Academics surmised that this ward was a foundling whom Shelley impulsively adopted to soothe his wife after the loss of their daughter Clara. Throughout his life, Shelley had strong impulses to “rescue” girls, so buying or otherwise obtaining an Italian infant would not have been out of character for him. However, baby Elena Adelaide did not become part of the family and was left behind in Naples, where she was evidently left with a working-class Neapolitan family.
   The child remained “a vague wraith” (in the words of scholar Richard D. Altick) until Shelley biographer Newman Ivey White and an Italian professor combed through the Neapolitan archives and found a birth certificate for Elena Adelaide, listing Percy Bysshe Shelley as the father, and the mother as one “Marina Padurin.” We'll return to that name Marina Padurin later. There was also a baptism certificate, again stating that Percy Shelley was the father and the mother was his wife, Mary Godwin (which was, of course, Mary's maiden name). Also, sadly, there is a death certificate, for Elena Adelaide, like three other children associated with this family, died very young in Italy.

   Shelley registered the child's birth and baptism with the authorities, and he did so the night before he left Naples with Mary and Claire, leaving the baby behind.
   The parentage of Elena Adelaide is a mystery, and there are several theories, but wide agreement that Mary Shelley was not the mother of the child. She wasn't pregnant that winter. There is no record of her giving birth, and obviously, she wouldn't leave Naples and leave her new-born child behind to be raised by a foster family. So, if the documents claimed that Mary Shelley was the mother, the documents are false. It is possible that Mary Shelley didn't even know about these documents. However, Mary's journal records that she and Shelley had a "most tremendous fuss" when they left Naples. That was Mary's euphemism for a fight.
     So who were Elena Adelaide's parents. Was Shelley really the father? Who was the mother?  Was it Claire? Was it the nurse-maid Elise? Was it the mysterious lady? 
   Next blog post, we'll take a closer look at the birth certificate.
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Ne​xt: A falsified birth certificate


[1] page 104, Richard D. Altick, The Scholar Adventurers, Ohio State University Press, 1987.

After traipsing around Italy, Percy Bysshe Shelley, his wife Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin and her step-sister Claire Clairmont rented a villa in the spa town of Bagni di Lucca in the summer of 1818. They lived there with their little son, baby daughter, and some servants. This was a very young household: Mary Shelley was 20, her husband a few years older.
   In mid-August, Shelley and Claire abruptly left for Venice. Claire was anxious to see her little daughter Allegra, the result of a brief and one-sided fling with Lord Byron.
​   Claire had unhappily and unwillingly given custody of the baby to Byron. She was essentially destitute, he was rich; she was obscure, he was famous, she trusted he could give the child a better life and she was grateful he acknowledged paternity. Mary Shelley generously gave up her children’s Swiss nurse-maid so Allegra could have a familiar face taking care of her when she was sent to a father she'd never known.
   Shelley biographers state that Claire insisted on going to Venice because the Shelleys had received alarming letters from the nurse-maid, advising them that Byron had casually handed off Allegra to the British consul-general and his wife, while he was busy debauching himself all over Venice.
   Once in Venice, Shelley wrote to Mary and asked her: "Well tell me, dearest Mary, are you very lonely?.... What acquaintances have you made?”  In fact, the Shelleys deliberately hung back from making new acquaintances. They held Italians in contempt and didn't think much better of their fellow English tourists. The feeling was mutual: because the Shelleys were non-conformists and Shelley was an avowed atheist, respectable people shunned them. The modern equivalent would be socialist vegans setting up a small commune in some middle-class community, with rumours going around that they practised free love.
   Did Shelley ask Mary about new acquaintances because he was worried she was lonely in his absence, or was he worried that she might meet someone he didn’t want her to meet?

   Three days later, Shelley wrote to Mary Shelley again and told her to leave Bagni di Lucca and come to him immediately because Byron offered to let them live in his country villa in Este, and he would permit Allegra to come visit with them there. Mary complied, even though their baby girl was ill.
   Picture a six days' journey in a carriage, with no air-conditioning, on rough roads, in Italy in August with a very sick baby.
   Some historians have explained that Shelley needed to get Mary to Este in a hurry because Claire was desperate to spend time with baby Allegra, but Byron wouldn't let the child visit with Claire unless Mary Shelley was also in residence. But while Mary was making her arduous and miserable journey, Shelley admitted to Byron that Mary was not with him, as he had implied, rendering that haste unnecessary.
  It's odd, anyway, that Mary's presence was so crucial because Byron thought the Shelleys were abysmally poor parents who half-starved their children. Would a week or more have made such a difference? Why was Shelley so insistent on hurrying?
    Poor baby Clara contracted dysentery. She survived the six day trip to Este, but was very weak.
   A few weeks later Shelley left Mary behind again and went to Padua with Claire, ostensibly in search of a good doctor for her. He wrote to Mary and ordered her to bring the baby to Padua. Then they went on to Venice, to consult Lord Byron's doctor. The baby did not survive the trip. She died in her mother's arms.
   What accounts for Shelley's urgent insistence that Mary come from Bagni di Lucca  immediately, despite little Clara being ill?
   I provide a new answer in my forthcoming novel, A Different Kind of Woman.​
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Next:  Who was Elena Adelaide?