'The web of our Life is of mingled Yarn' John Keats
In Young
Romantics Daisy Hay shatters the myth of the Romantic poet as a
solitary, introspective genius, telling the story of the communal
existence of an astonishingly youthful circle. The fiery, generous
spirit of Leigh Hunt, radical journalist and editor of The Examiner,
took centre stage. He bound together the restless Shelley and his
brilliant wife Mary, author of Frankenstein; Mary's feisty
step-sister Claire Clairmont, who became Byron's lover and the mother of
his child; and Hunt's charismatic sister-in-law Elizabeth Kent. With
authority, sparkling prose and constant insight Daisy Hay describes
their travels in France, Switzerland and Italy, their artistic triumphs,
their headstrong ways, their grievous losses and their devastating
tragedies.
Young Romantics explores the history of the
group, from its inception in Leigh Hunt's prison cell in 1813 to its
ultimate disintegration in the years following 1822. It encompasses
tales of love, betrayal, sacrifice and friendship, all of which were
played out against a background of political turbulence and intense
literary creativity. This smouldering turmoil of strained relationships
and insular friendships would ferment to inspire the drama of Frankenstein,
the heady idealism of Shelley's poetry, and Byron's own self-loathing,
self-loving public persona.
Above all the characters are rendered
on the page with marvellous vitality, and this is a gloriously
entrancing and revelatory read, the debut of a young biographer of the
highest calibre and enormous promise.
