After the death of Percy Bysshe Shelley in 1822, Claire Clairmont left her widowed step-sister Mary in Italy, after having lived with the Shelleys for years. She joined her brother Charles in Vienna, who had recently moved there to teach English....
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After the death of Percy Bysshe Shelley in 1822, Claire Clairmont left her widowed step-sister Mary in Italy, after having lived with the Shelleys for years. She joined her brother Charles in Vienna, who had recently moved there to teach English. In 1824, Claire left for Russia to become a governess, at around which time Charles married the Viennese Antonia Ghi(s)laine d'Hembyze. Charles and Antonia had seven children, several of whom would live to develop close relationships with their aunt Claire into adulthood. The Clairmont family papers consist of letters, journals and various documents related to the descendants of Claire and Charles Gaulis Clairmont, the step-siblings of Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, English writer. Many of the documents from the 1930's, written in German and bearing government seals, trace the genealogy of the family back to the eighteenth century. Also included are documents from the 1760's relating to the ancestors of Charles Clairmont's wife Antonia Ghi(s)laine d'Hembyze, some of which are on vellum.
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