Travel writer
One of two letters written by Mary Shelley which are held in the Manuscript Album enquires about the history, religion and politics of Bohemia. One of her last-known projects was a partial translation of a novel by German author, Ida Hahn-Hahn, called Cecil (1844). The letter was written in March 1844 and it is also the same year that her final full-length book was published: Rambles in Germany and Italy, in 1840, 1842, and 1843.
The other day I sent you some books by a friend going to Paris - & I enclosed a letter for you to another friend which I hope she will present. Meanwhile I am going to intrude upon you, asking for some information which I think you can give me.
I want some account of the old Kings of Bohemia & the fire worshippers of that country - of Jerome of Prague of the Hussites of Bohemia - of Zizska - & also of the manner in which Bohemia is at present governed. Of course such information might easily be found in German - but I cannot read German - can … [?] it in any other language & in what book? Will you tell me & perhaps I can get the book here.
Pray forgive me for giving you this trouble - but you know every thing - …[?] living among the learned - I (not knowing German) know nothing - & live the life of a recluse.
I shall be very glad to hear how you are - I hope quite well - with compliments to Mr. Dunbar, I am very truly yours.
Shelley, M. Letter to Rose Stewart, 17th March 1844.
Manuscript Album, 93
Rambles in Germany is an epistolary work describing journeys which Mary made with her son, Percy Florence, and some of his friends. Mary used the travelogue as a vehicle to explore and comment upon politics, war, cultural characteristics and historical outlooks as well as, by visiting places associated with P.B. Shelley, examining her own roles as a widow and mother.
The same philosophical perspective was prevalent in her earlier travel writing: in their collaborative journal, History of a Six Weeks' Tour (1817) P.B. Shelley and Mary Godwin considered the effects of politics on war in France, the revolutionary legacy of Jean-Jacques Rousseau and infused it with political idealism.
