Yachting diary of Jane, Lady Shelley

Jane, Lady Shelley, née Gibson, other married name St. John. She was the wife of Sir Percy Florence Shelley, son of the English poet Percy Bysshe Shelley, and Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, author of Frankenstein. Though they had no children, Lady Shelley and Sir Percy raised Bessie Florence Gibson, called "Floss," as their own; she was possibly the daughter of Lady Shelley's brother. Florence Trevor [later married name Blake] was Sir Percy's cousin, the child of his father's sister Mary. Record of three yachting trips taken by Lady Shelley and Sir Percy Florence Shelley between 1852 and 1860, with 22 of Lady Shelley's original ink and watercolor sketches of landscape scenery. The first trip (24 July-14 August, 1852) is through the lochs of Scotland and includes sketches of the Mare Isles [i.e., Garvellachs] and the Isle of Scarba. While in Scotland the Shelleys are greeted by "all the St Johns," the family of Lady Shelley's late first husband; they also discover a dead body in a cottage at St. Augustus, go mushrooming near the ruins of Castle Urquhart, and spot whales. The "2nd Cruize of the Ginevra" (15 February-31 May, 1853) takes the Shelleys from England southward, past Guernsey, through the Bay of Biscay and down the Spanish and Portuguese coasts. They then sail through the Strait of Gibralter, onward through the Greek islands, and end up in Contantinople. Lady Shelley includes sketches of Gibralter, and the Spanish and African coasts opposite it; Valetta; the Sicilian coast; Girgenti, on road to the temples; Etna, from Cape Passaro; Syracuse; Scilla; Messina; Palermo; and Corfu. On "Our first Cruize in the Flirt" (3 October-6 December, 1860), the Shelleys make their way to Coruña, Spain where they spend a few days. Lady Shelley notes that a pressed flower, present in the volume, was "Gathered from Sir John Moore's tomb, given to [her] by little Floss." After enduring very bad weather, they anchor "two miles east of Vigo." At the end of the volume, reverso, are three poetical pieces in various other hands: "From the home of my childhood thus young am I driven," signed "J. T.," dated May 1, 1853; "Shadows on the Water," by Florence Trevor, 1848; and "Lines written at Boscombe," in the hand of Richard Garnett. One unidentified landscape sketch is laid in the album.