Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Free audio post production Biophonic dot Com.
Speaker 2 (00:06):
Hi guys, I'm Courtney and I'm Lisa, and we are
the hosts of The Book of the Dead, a true
crime podcast based out of New Jersey, where we tell
you about the most obscure cases that you may have
never heard of. So join us in the Book of
the Dead library for another chapter of the Book of
the Dead. Wherever you get your podcasts. Hi guys, dark
(00:31):
Cast Network, Welcome to the Dark Side of podcasts.
Speaker 3 (00:38):
The files are located on the second floor at the
end of a long hallway. Four usent lights of all
flicker on and off. Open the door on the right.
In the bottom drawer of a file cabinet. There it
is a folder labeled with three words that are poor
(01:00):
on to stories, stories of history, stories.
Speaker 1 (01:03):
Of people, stories of death.
Speaker 3 (01:07):
I'm look palling and this is famous last words.
Speaker 1 (01:27):
What is more romantic than a man willing to give
up money, title, and power for doing what he believes
is right? Is it a man willing to give it
all up for the woman he loves, or should we
say the women he loves? What sex here than a
tortured poet stricken by nightmares and visions? Yet blessed with
unbridled creativity and passions. What about someone who challenges convention
(01:49):
with philosophical intelligence and reason. Well, in Percy by Shelley,
we find them all wrapped up in one perfect poetic pagage.
The first gentleman of this very busy vinn diagram of
Gothic love and death was born to Timothy and Elizabeth
(02:11):
Shelley on August fourth, eighteen seventy two in Horsham, Sussex, England.
Timothy was a member of Parliament representing the Whig Party,
and as the eldest son, it was expected that Percy
would naturally follow in his father's footsteps. From a very
young age. However, Percy's interests lay elsewhere. He quickly developed
his skills in language and science, and developed a fascination
(02:33):
with paranormal activities in the occult. As early as ten,
he started scaring his sisters with magic spells and costumes.
These interests and pursuits continued and grew throughout his life
and literally haunted him until the end, but we'll get
to that later. Shelley attended the legendary Eton for six
years from the age of twelve on and was known
(02:56):
to be very smart, but frustratingly so, as he was
constantly challengednging the school's conventions. He was fascinated with all
aspects of science and constantly questions all things of religion
and making a serious case for atheism. By the same token,
he was also known to love a great trashy Gothic
tale and for his temper. Fittingly, at least according to
(03:18):
his schoolmates, he was quickly identified as weird and often
referred to as mad Shelley. Therefore, it's no surprise that
he quickly found himself bullied, both verbally and physically. No
matter how many centuries pass, the broody goth schoolboy archetype
is a constant we can always count on somehow. Despite
(03:40):
all of that, Shelley wrote some pretty impressive works while
in school. In fact, within a year of being at
Eton he had published two novels and two volumes of poetry.
Some of those works featured odes to his pursuits of
his first desired conquest, his cousin, Harriet Grove. This relationship
was not destined to be, however, their parents felt the
(04:01):
whole kissing cousin thing should really be more of an
expression than a way of life. And they both strictly
forbade the relationship. Percy soon got over it, and don't worry,
he found another lady, another Harriet, as luck would have it,
And also to make this story a bit more confusing,
and to really take this soon to be bizarre love,
try and go into a bizarre rumbus slash family affair.
(04:23):
He later meets the seemingly love of his life, Mary
Wollstonecraft and her stepsister Claire. But before we meet them,
we must meet Harriet Westbrook and Thomas Jefferson Hogg. In
eighteen ten, Percy enrolled at Oxford and found a kindred
spirit in Hogg. The two classmates soon became fast friends, collaborators,
(04:44):
and co conspirators. They were drawn to the same passions
of philosophy, magic, science, writing, religion, politics. They co authored
some works together, including a few which were published anonymously
and some not so anonymously. During the year that Shelley
was at Oxford, he also published a little pamphlet known
as the Necessity of Atheism, which, as you might have
(05:07):
inferd from the title, caused quite a stir around campus
and an even bigger stir with Percy's family. The pamphlet
managed to get both Shelley and Hog quickly expelled from Oxford,
and to top it off, Percy also found himself cut
off from his family's finances. This quickly thrust him into
the world of trying to prove his willingness to live
(05:27):
by his beliefs no matter the cost. During this time,
Percy continued his pursuit of knowledge while doing everything he
could to make financial ends meet, and even in the
toughest of times, he did not waver in his beliefs.
A staunch follower of William Goodwin, Shelley was a strong
believer in free love and did not think there was
any need for the confines of a traditional marriage or
(05:48):
even monogamy. That said, he soon fell for Harriet Westbrook,
a sixteen year old friend of his sisters. Now there's
some debate as to whether it was Cupid's arrow or
a hero complex to want to take care of her,
or maybe it was just an opportunistic thought that perhaps
romance could lead to financial stability. But whatever the case,
Percine Harriet fell in love whatever that means, and it
(06:12):
looked to Europe. Percy's buddy Thomas Hogg, soon joined them
and apparently brought along some hurt feelings because the plan
was to hook Thomas up with Percy's sister, but Thomas
fell madly in love with Harriet, and with all of
(06:32):
this free love talk, this meant there should have been
a perfect opportunity for forming a throat bole or at
least a menag or twa. But it wasn't meant to be.
And perhaps surprisingly or not surprisingly, this bizarre love triangle
didn't ruin the friendship between Percy and Thomas. Oh, it
did make things a little awkward, and then it became
even more awkward when it happened again with Shelley's second
(06:55):
wife Mary. Percy's marriage his first one to Harriet was
quickly growing tiresome, and he soon took up with the
daughter of his mentor Goodwin, which you think would make
everyone happy. Goodwin was far from pleased and forbade them
to ever be together, sending Percy back into the arms
of Harriet. Love will tear us apart, as they say,
and Percy remained tormented and tortured with visions, either through
(07:18):
visits from the paranormal, the effects of alaudanum addiction or
mental illness, or olive the above, take your pick. Some
of these visions included everything from assassination attempts to visions
of the devil himself eventually like a magnet to steel.
Mary and Percy couldn't stay apart, and they ran off
(07:38):
to Europe together. When they returned home, Harriet, who had
two children with Percy, requested avorce since Percy and Mary
also about to have a child. Percy and Mary's child
sadly passed away just a few weeks old. Mary gave
birth to a second child, and then in eighteen sixteen,
the couple decided to travel to Europe with Mary's stepsister.
Claire had at least for the moment, captured the eye
(08:02):
of the fetching Lord Byron and was anxious to introduce
him to Mary and Percy. During this time, Percy and
Byron became fast friends, and some say were immediately smitten
with each other, intellectually or otherwise regardless, Percy's creative juices
were flowing, and some of his greatest works resulted from
that time in Europe, including him to Intellectual Beauty. Upon
(08:25):
their return to England, Percy and Mary learned that both
Mary's half sister and Harriet Percy's first wife had committed suicide.
The courts ruled that Percy was unfit to raise his children,
and they were given to foster parents. Percy had built
up a steady group of poet friends, including John Keats,
in London, but eventually Mary and Percy, who at this
point had decided to marry, moved to a small village
(08:48):
in Buckinghamshire along with Claire and her daughter, fathered by
that Rapscallion Byron. The close living quarters proved to be
way too close for comfort, and Shelley's continued financial woes
landed him in jail for stealing. The devastation and the
loss of multiple loved ones eventually sent the Shelleys back
to Europe to escape at all with their friends Edward
(09:10):
and Jane Williams. This trip would lead to the creation
of Frankenstein, the tragic death of their baby, and the
death of Percy himself. While on this trip, Percy continued
to have tortured dreams and ghostly visions, ranging from seeing
a naked child rise from the sea to one of
another child with Percy's on face strangling Mary. He saw
(09:33):
their friends, the Williams, covered in blood, and he saw
raging seas, He engaged with Semon and a garden, asking
him how long he expected to be content, and found
there was no one there. He was tortured and tormented
repeatedly by these ghostly visions. Some accounts say that Jane
Williams also had similar visions during the visit. She saw
Percy walk to the window without a jacket in early
(09:56):
spring twice and then seemingly leap over a wall and disappear.
It was all very strange, were they ghosts? Premonitions? Too
much wine? A month later all would be clear. Percy
Edward was sailing back from Laverno and Percy's boat, the
Don Juan, and a nod to his old buddy Byron.
Bad Weather was forecasted for the day that the two
(10:18):
were going to sail back, yet they insisted on traveling
home that day, and their boat encountered to storm. It
could not recover, it capsized, and all three aboard drowned.
Ten days later, their bodies were recovered. Shelley was only
twenty nine years old. At a hastily convened funeral on
the beach, Lord Byron wept as Percy's body was burned.
(10:41):
Percy's immortalized in Westminster Abbey's revered Poet's Corner, sharing a
tablet with his good friend Keat's, located right above Sir
William Shakespeare. His last words are unknown. However, in Adonis,
a poem he wrote for Keats upon his own untimely
death before him, Percy touches on a few hauntingly familiar images.
(11:05):
The breath whose might I have invoked in song descends
on me, my spirits. Bark is driven far from the shore,
far from the trembling throng, whose sails were never to tempest,
Given the massy earth and sphered skies are riven. I
am born, darkly, fearfully afar, whilst burning through the inmost
veil of heaven. The soul of Adonis, like a star,
(11:28):
beacons from the abode where the eternals are. Perhaps Keats
knew too, for before he died, his last request was
that on his tombstone he did not want his name
or any other details written other than here lies one
whose name was written in water, and that inscription could
really also work for Percy Shelley, when his body was
(11:53):
found in the pocket of his jacket was Keats's Lamina Isabella,
the eve of Saint Agnes and other poems. Famous last
(12:13):
Words is written and narrated by Luke Pohling, That's Me.
It is produced by Heidi he Quist and myself. Our
assistant producer is Sabrina Thompson. You can find the show
on Facebook under Famous last Words Podcast. You can follow
us on Instagram where we are at Famous last Words pod,
and if you want even more Famous last Words, find
(12:35):
us on sapstack at Famous last Words. Darkcast Network, the
(13:00):
light Shine's greatest on our indie podcasts.
Speaker 4 (13:04):
Welcome to Creepy Tapas, where we do the opposite of
deep dives and bring you tiny tastes of terror connected
by a common ingredient, true stories to haunt and chill
you and the pop culture they inspired, or at least
the movies and books that remind us of them. Join
us as we descend into darkness, beginning with the lighter
side of our weekly topic and wrapping with a full
(13:25):
dark no stars account of terror, madness, murder, and more.
It's Creepy top As, y'all.
Speaker 3 (13:34):
Free audio post production
Speaker 1 (13:37):
Byolphonic dot Com.
Free audio post production Biophonic dot Com.
Speaker 2 (00:06):
Hi guys, I'm Courtney and I'm Lisa, and we are
the hosts of The Book of the Dead, a true
crime podcast based out of New Jersey, where we tell
you about the most obscure cases that you may have
never heard of. So join us in the Book of
the Dead library for another chapter of the Book of
the Dead. Wherever you get your podcasts. Hi guys, dark
(00:31):
Cast Network, Welcome to the Dark Side of podcasts.
Speaker 3 (00:38):
The files are located on the second floor at the
end of a long hallway. Four usent lights of all
flicker on and off. Open the door on the right.
In the bottom drawer of a file cabinet. There it
is a folder labeled with three words that are poor
(01:00):
on to stories, stories of history, stories.
Speaker 1 (01:03):
Of people, stories of death.
Speaker 3 (01:07):
I'm look palling and this is famous last words.
Speaker 1 (01:27):
What is more romantic than a man willing to give
up money, title, and power for doing what he believes
is right? Is it a man willing to give it
all up for the woman he loves, or should we
say the women he loves? What sex here than a
tortured poet stricken by nightmares and visions? Yet blessed with
unbridled creativity and passions. What about someone who challenges convention
(01:49):
with philosophical intelligence and reason. Well, in Percy by Shelley,
we find them all wrapped up in one perfect poetic pagage.
The first gentleman of this very busy vinn diagram of
Gothic love and death was born to Timothy and Elizabeth
(02:11):
Shelley on August fourth, eighteen seventy two in Horsham, Sussex, England.
Timothy was a member of Parliament representing the Whig Party,
and as the eldest son, it was expected that Percy
would naturally follow in his father's footsteps. From a very
young age. However, Percy's interests lay elsewhere. He quickly developed
his skills in language and science, and developed a fascination
(02:33):
with paranormal activities in the occult. As early as ten,
he started scaring his sisters with magic spells and costumes.
These interests and pursuits continued and grew throughout his life
and literally haunted him until the end, but we'll get
to that later. Shelley attended the legendary Eton for six
years from the age of twelve on and was known
(02:56):
to be very smart, but frustratingly so, as he was
constantly challengednging the school's conventions. He was fascinated with all
aspects of science and constantly questions all things of religion
and making a serious case for atheism. By the same token,
he was also known to love a great trashy Gothic
tale and for his temper. Fittingly, at least according to
(03:18):
his schoolmates, he was quickly identified as weird and often
referred to as mad Shelley. Therefore, it's no surprise that
he quickly found himself bullied, both verbally and physically. No
matter how many centuries pass, the broody goth schoolboy archetype
is a constant we can always count on somehow. Despite
(03:40):
all of that, Shelley wrote some pretty impressive works while
in school. In fact, within a year of being at
Eton he had published two novels and two volumes of poetry.
Some of those works featured odes to his pursuits of
his first desired conquest, his cousin, Harriet Grove. This relationship
was not destined to be, however, their parents felt the
(04:01):
whole kissing cousin thing should really be more of an
expression than a way of life. And they both strictly
forbade the relationship. Percy soon got over it, and don't worry,
he found another lady, another Harriet, as luck would have it,
And also to make this story a bit more confusing,
and to really take this soon to be bizarre love,
try and go into a bizarre rumbus slash family affair.
(04:23):
He later meets the seemingly love of his life, Mary
Wollstonecraft and her stepsister Claire. But before we meet them,
we must meet Harriet Westbrook and Thomas Jefferson Hogg. In
eighteen ten, Percy enrolled at Oxford and found a kindred
spirit in Hogg. The two classmates soon became fast friends, collaborators,
(04:44):
and co conspirators. They were drawn to the same passions
of philosophy, magic, science, writing, religion, politics. They co authored
some works together, including a few which were published anonymously
and some not so anonymously. During the year that Shelley
was at Oxford, he also published a little pamphlet known
as the Necessity of Atheism, which, as you might have
(05:07):
inferd from the title, caused quite a stir around campus
and an even bigger stir with Percy's family. The pamphlet
managed to get both Shelley and Hog quickly expelled from Oxford,
and to top it off, Percy also found himself cut
off from his family's finances. This quickly thrust him into
the world of trying to prove his willingness to live
(05:27):
by his beliefs no matter the cost. During this time,
Percy continued his pursuit of knowledge while doing everything he
could to make financial ends meet, and even in the
toughest of times, he did not waver in his beliefs.
A staunch follower of William Goodwin, Shelley was a strong
believer in free love and did not think there was
any need for the confines of a traditional marriage or
(05:48):
even monogamy. That said, he soon fell for Harriet Westbrook,
a sixteen year old friend of his sisters. Now there's
some debate as to whether it was Cupid's arrow or
a hero complex to want to take care of her,
or maybe it was just an opportunistic thought that perhaps
romance could lead to financial stability. But whatever the case,
Percine Harriet fell in love whatever that means, and it
(06:12):
looked to Europe. Percy's buddy Thomas Hogg, soon joined them
and apparently brought along some hurt feelings because the plan
was to hook Thomas up with Percy's sister, but Thomas
fell madly in love with Harriet, and with all of
(06:32):
this free love talk, this meant there should have been
a perfect opportunity for forming a throat bole or at
least a menag or twa. But it wasn't meant to be.
And perhaps surprisingly or not surprisingly, this bizarre love triangle
didn't ruin the friendship between Percy and Thomas. Oh, it
did make things a little awkward, and then it became
even more awkward when it happened again with Shelley's second
(06:55):
wife Mary. Percy's marriage his first one to Harriet was
quickly growing tiresome, and he soon took up with the
daughter of his mentor Goodwin, which you think would make
everyone happy. Goodwin was far from pleased and forbade them
to ever be together, sending Percy back into the arms
of Harriet. Love will tear us apart, as they say,
and Percy remained tormented and tortured with visions, either through
(07:18):
visits from the paranormal, the effects of alaudanum addiction or
mental illness, or olive the above, take your pick. Some
of these visions included everything from assassination attempts to visions
of the devil himself eventually like a magnet to steel.
Mary and Percy couldn't stay apart, and they ran off
(07:38):
to Europe together. When they returned home, Harriet, who had
two children with Percy, requested avorce since Percy and Mary
also about to have a child. Percy and Mary's child
sadly passed away just a few weeks old. Mary gave
birth to a second child, and then in eighteen sixteen,
the couple decided to travel to Europe with Mary's stepsister.
Claire had at least for the moment, captured the eye
(08:02):
of the fetching Lord Byron and was anxious to introduce
him to Mary and Percy. During this time, Percy and
Byron became fast friends, and some say were immediately smitten
with each other, intellectually or otherwise regardless, Percy's creative juices
were flowing, and some of his greatest works resulted from
that time in Europe, including him to Intellectual Beauty. Upon
(08:25):
their return to England, Percy and Mary learned that both
Mary's half sister and Harriet Percy's first wife had committed suicide.
The courts ruled that Percy was unfit to raise his children,
and they were given to foster parents. Percy had built
up a steady group of poet friends, including John Keats,
in London, but eventually Mary and Percy, who at this
point had decided to marry, moved to a small village
(08:48):
in Buckinghamshire along with Claire and her daughter, fathered by
that Rapscallion Byron. The close living quarters proved to be
way too close for comfort, and Shelley's continued financial woes
landed him in jail for stealing. The devastation and the
loss of multiple loved ones eventually sent the Shelleys back
to Europe to escape at all with their friends Edward
(09:10):
and Jane Williams. This trip would lead to the creation
of Frankenstein, the tragic death of their baby, and the
death of Percy himself. While on this trip, Percy continued
to have tortured dreams and ghostly visions, ranging from seeing
a naked child rise from the sea to one of
another child with Percy's on face strangling Mary. He saw
(09:33):
their friends, the Williams, covered in blood, and he saw
raging seas, He engaged with Semon and a garden, asking
him how long he expected to be content, and found
there was no one there. He was tortured and tormented
repeatedly by these ghostly visions. Some accounts say that Jane
Williams also had similar visions during the visit. She saw
Percy walk to the window without a jacket in early
(09:56):
spring twice and then seemingly leap over a wall and disappear.
It was all very strange, were they ghosts? Premonitions? Too
much wine? A month later all would be clear. Percy
Edward was sailing back from Laverno and Percy's boat, the
Don Juan, and a nod to his old buddy Byron.
Bad Weather was forecasted for the day that the two
(10:18):
were going to sail back, yet they insisted on traveling
home that day, and their boat encountered to storm. It
could not recover, it capsized, and all three aboard drowned.
Ten days later, their bodies were recovered. Shelley was only
twenty nine years old. At a hastily convened funeral on
the beach, Lord Byron wept as Percy's body was burned.
(10:41):
Percy's immortalized in Westminster Abbey's revered Poet's Corner, sharing a
tablet with his good friend Keat's, located right above Sir
William Shakespeare. His last words are unknown. However, in Adonis,
a poem he wrote for Keats upon his own untimely
death before him, Percy touches on a few hauntingly familiar images.
(11:05):
The breath whose might I have invoked in song descends
on me, my spirits. Bark is driven far from the shore,
far from the trembling throng, whose sails were never to tempest,
Given the massy earth and sphered skies are riven. I
am born, darkly, fearfully afar, whilst burning through the inmost
veil of heaven. The soul of Adonis, like a star,
(11:28):
beacons from the abode where the eternals are. Perhaps Keats
knew too, for before he died, his last request was
that on his tombstone he did not want his name
or any other details written other than here lies one
whose name was written in water, and that inscription could
really also work for Percy Shelley, when his body was
(11:53):
found in the pocket of his jacket was Keats's Lamina Isabella,
the eve of Saint Agnes and other poems. Famous last
(12:13):
Words is written and narrated by Luke Pohling, That's Me.
It is produced by Heidi he Quist and myself. Our
assistant producer is Sabrina Thompson. You can find the show
on Facebook under Famous last Words Podcast. You can follow
us on Instagram where we are at Famous last Words pod,
and if you want even more Famous last Words, find
(12:35):
us on sapstack at Famous last Words. Darkcast Network, the
(13:00):
light Shine's greatest on our indie podcasts.
Speaker 4 (13:04):
Welcome to Creepy Tapas, where we do the opposite of
deep dives and bring you tiny tastes of terror connected
by a common ingredient, true stories to haunt and chill
you and the pop culture they inspired, or at least
the movies and books that remind us of them. Join
us as we descend into darkness, beginning with the lighter
side of our weekly topic and wrapping with a full
(13:25):
dark no stars account of terror, madness, murder, and more.
It's Creepy top As, y'all.
Speaker 3 (13:34):
Free audio post production
Speaker 1 (13:37):
Byolphonic dot Com.
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