ENGLISH LITERATURE (CBSE/UGC NET)

Detailed explanation-1: -Clara Mary Jane Clairmont (27 April 1798 – 19 March 1879), or Claire Clairmont as she was commonly known, was the stepsister of the writer Mary Shelley and the mother of Lord Byron’s daughter Allegra. She is thought to be the subject of a poem by Percy Bysshe Shelley.

Detailed explanation-2: -Claire Clairmont began her journals in 1814, when she accompanied Shelley and her half-sister, Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin, on their elopement to the continent. She continued to write them until after Byron and Shelley were dead and she was living as a governess with a wealthy family in Moscow.

Detailed explanation-3: -Upon their return to England, Mary was pregnant with Percy’s child. Over the next two years, she and Percy faced ostracism, constant debt and the death of their prematurely born daughter. They married in late 1816, after the suicide of Percy Shelley’s first wife, Harriet.

Detailed explanation-4: -But as Mary set off to continue working on the novel, she received the news that her half-sister, Fanny, had committed suicide. Then, just one month later, the Shelleys heard that Harriet, Percy’s former wife, drowned herself at age 21. Notwithstanding her grief, Mary worked on the book for two more years.