menu
Departments
.svg)
Percy Bysshe Shelley lived a brief but extraordinary life. His reputation was shaped by extreme admiration and hostility caused by his controversial writings and his unconventional beliefs.
Born in Sussex into a wealthy family, Shelley was heir to a baronetcy and a substantial estate. Already a published writer when he entered Oxford University at nineteen, he was expelled after publishing a highly controversial pamphlet on Atheism and refusing to acknowledge or apologise for its authorship.
That same year, Shelley eloped with the 16 year old daughter of a London pub landlord causing outrage amongst his family. In early 1812, the couple travelled to Dublin, where Shelley distributed political pamphlets advocating Catholic rights, Irish self-government and freedom of thought.
He later fell in love with Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin, who would become the celebrated author of Frankenstein. They eloped in 1814 and travelled through Europe where Shelley developed friendships with fellow Romantic writers, including Lord Byron.
The rest of Shelley's personal life is novel-worthy in itself. As well as Byron, Shelley was close friends with some of the other greatest writers of the time including John Keats, Leigh Hunt, and Thomas Love Peacock.
His radical ideals and publications regarding religion, free love and liberation lead to infamy, censorship, controversy, social ostracisation and scandal. His published works have become some of the most acclaimed pieces of literature that would come to define the era including Queen Mab, Ozymandias, Prometheus Unbound and Adonais, the elegy for his friend Keats.
One of the most celebrated of these is Alastor; or, The Spirit of Solitude. Considered Shelly’s first major work and a visionary piece of prose, it was this publication that established Shelley as a key figure inthe Young Romantics circle.
Alastor is a poem that follows the journey of a gifted poet who searches for a deeper understanding and the ideal form of love. He encounters the vision of a perfect woman and becomes consumed by the desire. Rather than accepting the imperfect but genuine human relationships, he pursues this unattainable vision.
He dreamed aveilèd maid
Sate near him, talking in low solemn tones.
Her voice was like the voice of his own soul
Heard in the calm of thought; its music long,
Like woven sounds of streams and breezes
His quest takes him into increasingly remote landscapes where he dies alone. The story is a warning on how impossible ideals can lead to despair.
A fragile lute, on whose harmonious strings
The breath of heaven did wander—a bright stream
Once fed with many-voicèd waves—a dream
Of youth, which night and time have quenched for ever,
Still, dark, and dry, and unremembered now.
Shelley tragically died at sea in July 1822, aged just 29,when his sailing boat sank during a storm. His body was washed ashore and one of the identifying objects on him was a copy of Keats’s poems. He was cremated and legend has it that Shelley’s heart, too pure to burn, was preserved.
Shelley’s ideas, embodied in his verse, his prose, and his life, remain as a challenge to the servile acceptance of authority and as a challenge to us to achieve our highest potential — to always aspire to higher goals for ourselves and for society.
- PoetryFoundation
First edition of a visionary work by one of the most important English Romantic poets
Alastor; or, theSpirit of Solitude: and Other Poems by Percy Bysshe Shelley, 1st edition, 1816, to be offered in Adam's Rare Book & Manuscript Auction, February 2027
.avif)
.jpg)
.png)
.png)
.jpg)
John ffrench was an instrumental figure in the design industry in Ireland and a distinguished pioneer of Irish studio pottery.
)%20(1).jpg)
%20(002).png)
%20(2).jpg)
%20(1200%20x%20768%20px)%20(2).png)
.png)
.png)
"I should declare my hand. I have a weakness for pictures that punch above their physical weight, and for artists who have been quietly underrated for too long. This pair is both. They are intimate enough to live with at close quarters and serious enough to repay any amount of looking. If the market has lately shown signs of catching up with eighteenth-century Irish painting and I think it has, these two small panels feel, to me, like exactly the sort of thing that will look obvious in twenty years’ time."
Adam’s is honoured to present works from the collection of Lord Rossmore in the upcoming Country House Collections auction at Howth Castle on 28th April. It is seldom that an influential Irish family collection that has survived through the generations comes to the open market.
Works Sold at Adam’s Now in the Irish National Collection
A great opportunity to purchase both established and lesser-known artist’s work at an accessible price point, the Online Picture Auction is the first of many sales to be hosted at Adam’s in 2026. It is perfect for those looking to start a collection and the discerning collector alike.
Through this article, let our expert Adam Pearson guiding you to the (re)discovery of the once established Irish painter Richard O’Neill.
Buying at Auction and the Role of Antiques in a Modern Home
James Adam & Sons Ltd, Fine Art Auctioneers and Valuers, 26 St. Stephen’s Green, Dublin 2,
D02 X665, Ireland
