Subsequent letters still occasionally admit 'low spirits'. But the
entries in the Journal make it clear that the year 1819-20 was one of
the most pleasantly industrious of her life. Not Dante only, but a
motley series of books, great and small, ancient and modern, English
and foreign, bespoke her attention. Not content with Latin, and the
extemporized translations which Shelley could give her of Plato's
_Republic_, she started Greek in 1820, and soon came to delight in it.
And again she thought of original composition. 'Write', 'work,'--the
words now occur daily in her Journal. These must mainly refer to the
long historical novel, which she had planned, as early as 1819,
[Footnote: She had 'thought of it' at Marlow, as appears from her
letter to Mrs. Gisborne, 30 June 1821 (in Mrs. Marshall, i. p. 291);
but the materials for it were not found before the stay at Naples, and
it was not actually begun 'till a year afterwards, at Pisa' (ibid.).]
under the title of _Castruccio_, _Prince of Lucca_, and which was not
published until 1823, as _Valperga_. It was indeed a laborious task.
The novel 'illustrative of the manners of the Middle Ages in Italy'
had to be 'raked out of fifty old books', as Shelley said. [Footnote:
Letter to T. L. Peacock, November 1820.]
But heavy as the undertaking must have been, it certainly did not
engross all the activities of Shelley's wife in this period.
Pages:
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25