History of a Six Weeks’ Tour (1817) is a travelogue by Mary Shelley and Percy Bysshe Shelley. Composed of journal entries, letters, and a poem, History of a Six Weeks’ Tour was published anonymously with a preface by Percy. Detailing their stay in Switzerland during the legendary “year without a summer, ” the travelogue was Mary’s first published work and remains an invaluable text for the study of English Romanticism. When Percy Bysshe Shelley met Mary Godwin, he had initially planned to acquaint himself with her father, a famous philosopher. Soon, however, the pair fell in love and eloped with Claire Clairmont, Mary’s stepsister. They journeyed through France, Switzerland, Germany, and the Netherlands before returning home with little money and without the support of their families. In 1816, following the death of their first child, Percy and Mary travelled with Claire to Geneva, Switzerland, where the infamous Lord Byron had rented a villa along the shores of Lake Geneva. Due to a volcanic eruption in Indonesia, temperatures in Europe and throughout the world plummeted, creating the conditions for the “year without a summer.” Forced to remain indoors for much of their stay, the group soon grew tired of telling one another folk tales and ghost stories to pass the time. On a whim, Byron suggested they all write their own works of fiction, igniting the spark for some of the defining texts of the Romantic era. Having never published her own writing before, Mary unwittingly began mapping out her masterpiece. Frankenstein: or, The Modern Prometheus appeared in print two years later, changing the course of English literature forever. This edition of Mary Shelley and Percy Bysshe Shelley’s History of a Six Weeks’ Tour is a classic of English literature reimagined for modern readers.
Since our inception in 2020, Mint Editions has kept sustainability and innovation at the forefront of our mission. Each and every Mint Edition title gets a fresh, professionally typeset manuscript and a dazzling new cover, all while maintaining the integrity of the original book.
With thousands of titles in our collection, we aim to spotlight diverse public domain works to help them find modern audiences. Mint Editions celebrates a breadth of literary works, curated from both canonical and overlooked classics from writers around the globe.
About the author
Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792-1822) was an English Romantic poet. During his time at Oxford, he began his literary career in earnest, publishing Original Poetry by Victor and Cazire (1810) and St. Irvine; or, The Rosicrucian: A Romance (1811) In 1811, he married Harriet Westbrook, with whom he lived an itinerant lifestyle while pursuing affairs with other women. Through the poet Robert Southey, he fell under the influence of political philosopher William Godwin, whose daughter Mary soon fell in love with the precocious young poet. In the summer of 1814, Shelley eloped to France with Mary and her stepsister Claire Claremont, travelling to Holland, Germany, and Switzerland before returning to England in the fall. In 1816, Percy and Mary accepted an invitation to join Claremont and Lord Byron in Europe, spending a summer in Switzerland at a house on Lake Geneva. In 1818, following several years of unhappy life in England, the Shelleys—now married—moved to Italy, where Percy worked on The Masque of Anarchy (1819), Prometheus Unbound (1820), and Adonais (1821), now considered some of his most important works. In July of 1822, Shelley set sail on the Don Juan and was lost in a storm only hours later. His death at the age of 29 was met with despair and contempt throughout England and Europe, and he is now considered a leading poet and radical thinker of the Romantic era.More ebooks from the same author(s) / Editor
5,018 Ebooks in this category
