The Shelleys at Albion House, West Street, Marlow

One of Marlow’s many claims to fame is that it was the birthplace of Frankenstein’s monster.  Astonishingly, it was created by a mere 19-year old girl, who was pregnant with her third child at the time.  She was Mary Shelley, the wife of the romantic poet, Percy Bysshe Shelley.  The Shelleys moved to Albion House in West Street, Marlow, on 23 February 1817 and stayed for just one year.  But Marlow was well-known to them, as they had stayed in Marlow with their friend, Thomas Love Peacock, for weeks at a time on several occasions and undertook extensive walks in the surrounding area.

Their house can still be seen.  It is a three-storey building, with two rows of four windows at the front, each topped with ogee-curved arches in a quaint mock-gothic style, while four small windows peep over a classic balustrade.  It is much larger than it first appears with gardens at the back containing evergreen shrubs, a mound surrounded by cypresses, yews and a cedar tree.  The house has now been split into four white-stuccoed cottages, one of which bears a grey plaque to record the Shelley’s residence there.

Before they moved in, Shelley wrote excitedly to an acquaintance, “I am now on the point of taking a lease on a house among these woody hills, these sweet green fields and this delightful river”.  While Mary wrote, “All your fears and sorrows shall fly when you behold the blue skies and bright sun of Marlow – and feel its gentle breezes (not winds) on your cheeks – we enjoy in this town a most delightful climate – and rivers – woods and flowering fields make no contemptible appendage to a bright sky”.

Shelley spent much of that summer walking in Bisham Woods on the opposite side of the river or drifting on the Thames in a small sailing skiff.  During this time, he wrote the 4,418 lines of the poem that was later published as The Revolt of Islam, in which he developed the lyrical style which has raised his name as a romantic poet of the first order.

He also wrote two other long poems while in Marlow, Prince Athenase and Rosalind and Helen, as well as two political pamphlets, for which he adopted the pseudonym, ‘The Hermit of Marlow’.  Mary also produced one of the first travel books, The History of a Six Weeks Tour, as well as Frankenstein, which has since been adapted to the stage several times and has been the subject of over 100 films, not all very accurate to the original book, which is still in print.

If you would like to know more about the Shelleys, the full story story of their time in Marlow is described in a 28-pagebooklet, entitled ’The Monsters of Marlow’.   This was written by Tony Reeve on behalf of The Marlow Society for The Tourist Information Centre.  Copies are available from the Marlow Society or the Tourist Information Centre in the High Street.