Mary Shelley - Journal of Sorrow
Part of the Shelley's Ghost Exhibition. In the months immediately following Shelley's death Mary lived at Albaro on the outskirts of Genoa. Her only regular companions were her young son, Percy Florence, and the journal she began on 2 October 1822.
To this 'Journal of Sorrow' she confided her innermost thoughts: 'White paper - wilt thou be my confident? I will trust thee fully, for none shall see what I write.' To be sure, Mary would not have shared the entries she wrote immediately after Shelley's death, in which her remorse and despair sometimes approached hysteria. But she left no instructions for the 'Journal of Sorrow' to be destroyed after her death, and was perhaps reconciled to the idea that this, and her other journals, would eventually be seen by other eyes.
Date Published:
2 December 2010
Source:
Contributors:
Nouran Koriem
In Collection(s):
Celebrating women’s writing: the pen in their hands
Cite:
Mary Shelley - Journal of Sorrow at https://podcasts.ox.ac.uk/ via https://dev.writersinspire.it.ox.ac.uk/content/mary-shelley-journal-sorrow. Published on 02 December 2010. Accessed on 14 May 2026.
If reusing this resource please attribute as follows: Mary Shelley - Journal of Sorrow (https://podcasts.ox.ac.uk/), licensed as Creative Commons BY-NC-SA (2.0 UK).