2

In collection

Details
TITLE

Autograph Letter by Percy B. Shelley to Edward Trelawny

SUMMARY

Shelley discusses the Don Juan and asks Trelawny to procure him a small quantity of prussic acid. ‘I need not tell you I have no intention of suicide at present’, he assures him, ‘but I confess it would be a comfort to me to hold in my possession that golden key to the chamber of perpetual rest. The prussic acid is used in medicine in infinitely minute doses; but that preparation is weak, and has not the concentration necessary to medicine all ills infallibly—A single drop, even less, is a dose, and it acts by paralysis.’ Shelley was then suffering from periodic but excruciating pain, possibly as a result of kidney stones.

NAME

Shelley, Percy Bysshe, 1792-1822 (sender)
Trelawny, Edward John, 1792-1881 (recipient)
()

DATE

1822 June, 18

ITEM

4 sheets

MEDIUM

manuscript

MATERIALS

paper

LANGUAGE

eng

GENRE

autographs (manuscripts)
letters (correspondence)

TOPICAL TERM SUBJECT

sailing ships

CHRONOLOGICAL SUBJECT

1822

ACQUISITION NOTE

Gift of Colonel and Mrs Call, 1912.

PROVENANCE

Mrs Call’s father was Trelawny.

LOCATION

KSH

Terrace Room

SHL-2.8


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