Vulgar History - Mary Shelley's Scandalous Sister, Claire Clairmont (Revisited)

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00:00:30.000 hello and welcome to vulgar history a feminist women's history comedy podcast my name is anne

00:00:45.320 foster and we are in our regency era this series we are talking about people who lived mostly in

00:00:51.540 england during the first part of the 1800s the jane austen time period the bridgerton time period

00:00:57.360 and what was it really like for a lot of people living then. Today we're talking about Claire

00:01:02.740 Claremont. So this is a revisit of an episode we did last year, I think a bit ago, but it fits in

00:01:09.960 so well. And I think with all the information that we now know, having done the episodes about

00:01:14.240 Mary Wollstonecraft and Mary Shelley and Lord Byron, I think it was time to look at Claire

00:01:19.560 Claremont again through our fresh eyes and to insert her into this Regency era series. Part of

00:01:26.200 what we're doing in this series is we're going to be, at the end of it, we're going to do a sort of,

00:01:29.700 I think, bracket sort of thing, like a competition. Who's going to be the diamond of the season? And

00:01:36.920 I want Claire Claremont to be there with everybody else. So I'm replaying this episode. Anyway,

00:01:41.960 Claire Claremont is best known for being the stepsister of Mary Shelley. She was there that

00:01:47.960 night at Lord Byron's villa when there was the ghost story writing competition. Why was she there?

00:01:54.440 what was her relationship like with Mary Shelley and what did she do after are all things that are

00:01:59.440 much less known than the life of Mary Shelley. So that's why I was so excited when the guest

00:02:06.240 you're about to hear me talk with Leslie McDowell published a novel called Claremont. And I love

00:02:11.140 the tagline of this book. She was the sister, the mother, the muse. Now it's time for her story. So

00:02:17.020 this is a novel about Claire Claremont and her real life history. Leslie McDowell is so passionate

00:02:22.420 about talking about Claire. She makes me love her even more. At the time I recorded this,

00:02:26.840 the book was only available in the UK, but it is now available in North America as well.

00:02:31.500 There's a link in the show notes to my bookshop.org store where you can purchase a copy of this as an

00:02:36.800 ebook and it should be available as an ebook from lots of other stores as well. Anyway, Claire

00:02:41.580 Claremont, honestly, she's my girl. I'm so happy that there's this book in existence now about her

00:02:47.220 And I'm really happy to share again this interview with Leslie McDowell about the iconic Claire Claremont.

00:02:56.760 Hello and welcome to Vulgar History, a feminist women's history comedy podcast.

00:03:01.640 My name is Anne Foster and this week's episode was a long time coming when you think about it.

00:03:06.740 So we're talking today about my girl, Claire Claremont, who is best known as the kind of third wheel stepsister of Mary Shelley.

00:03:16.440 And she's been mentioned on this podcast twice before.

00:03:19.620 So when I did the Mary Shelley episode, Claire Claremont kind of like stormed on the scene

00:03:23.780 and kind of stole my heart.

00:03:25.400 And then also I did an interview a bit ago with Heather Redmond, who wrote a book called

00:03:30.720 Death and the Sisters, which is about Mary Shelley and Claire Claremont solving a murder

00:03:35.320 mystery.

00:03:36.340 And then for people who are paid members of the Patreon, I've also in the past done a

00:03:40.660 so this asshole episode about one of Claire's paramours, but we'll talk more about that in a

00:03:46.540 second. Anyway, there's so much more to her story than just, she was Mary Shelley's stepsister and 0.90

00:03:51.540 she was there that summer in Geneva when Frankenstein was written. And I lost my mind

00:03:56.580 when I saw, this was like six months ago when I first heard, just saw the title that Leslie

00:04:02.560 McDowell was writing a book called Claremont. And I thought to myself, oh, wouldn't it be great if

00:04:06.560 that's about Claire Claremont, but I was also like mitigating expectations. Like I'm sure it's not,

00:04:10.920 I'm sure it's just a book called that. I'm sure that's the name of a street or something,

00:04:14.300 but no, it is a book about Claire Claremont. It's, I think the first novel just telling Claire's

00:04:22.660 story and really examining who she is as a person. And Leslie McDowell, I invited her on the podcast

00:04:28.680 again. I'm going to say like six months ago, I was like, hi, you've read this book about Claire

00:04:32.360 Claremont. I love her. Please come be on my podcast when your book is published. A really

00:04:36.160 long time for now. And she's like, of course. So anyway, finally, the time is here. The book has

00:04:40.440 just come out in the UK. It is called Claremont and you should be able to get this wherever you

00:04:46.060 are in the UK. If you're not in the UK, from what I can tell, you can pre-order it to get it in

00:04:52.320 North America and other places as well. I think it's coming out maybe in the fall, but there are

00:04:56.580 ways if you're in North America that you can order books from the UK if you poke around a little bit.

00:05:03.160 anyway, this book exists. I'm so happy that Claire is finally the main character for once.

00:05:10.480 And so for this podcast, Leslie joined me just to talk about Claire and how she came to write

00:05:16.620 this book. And we like, this is a true vulgar history episode. Like we're going from beginning

00:05:20.860 to end of the whole story of Claire Claremont. There's so much I didn't know until I started

00:05:24.860 prepping for this. Cause again, it's just kind of, one gets the impression that she ran away

00:05:29.560 with Mary Shelley and Percy Shelley and she was there that summer in Geneva she had a baby and

00:05:34.340 then it's kind of like she I don't know like I didn't know until getting ready for this episode

00:05:38.480 slash reading Leslie's novel that I learned all the cool stuff that Claire did and how she

00:05:42.760 really was an icon for for a kind of independent woman living on her own that I think was very

00:05:49.860 unusual for the like Regions era when she lived it's still unusual today anyway I'm so happy to

00:05:57.480 present to you this interview with leslie mcdowell about the one the only claire claremont oh and

00:06:04.100 also um trigger warning lord byron so i'm joined today by leslie mcdowell author of the new book

00:06:16.020 claremont which is about claire claremont uh leslie my first question well first of all welcome

00:06:22.560 thank you and my first question for you is when did you first become interested in Claire Claremont

00:06:30.720 do you remember oh gosh yes it goes back about 25 years ago I think I was reviewing a book for

00:06:41.180 um a Glasgow newspaper I'm based in Glasgow in Scotland it was a newspaper called the Herald

00:06:46.440 I was reviewing this new publication that was out, which was a newly found or newly discovered story by Mary Shelley called Maurice or The Fisher's Caught.

00:06:57.660 And the introduction was quite lengthy by a woman called Claire Tomlin, a biographer in the UK.

00:07:04.580 And she talks about Mary, obviously, and the Shelley's and also about Claire.

00:07:11.920 Now, I knew about Claire vaguely from when I was a student studying Shelley and Byron and stuff.

00:07:18.060 You sort of pass her as you go through all these illiterate stuff. 1.00

00:07:22.060 But for some reason, and I knew she'd had Byron's child, but for some reason, I just thought she'd toddled off and died, you know, afterwards in the way that women do. 1.00

00:07:30.080 I think it's that thing of, you know, if you're used to like 19th century literature, like, you know, Madame Bovary and Anna Karenina, you know, women who transgress in some way, usually sexual transgressions, usually, you know, end up dead. 1.00

00:07:44.860 And she didn't. There was this afterlife. She went to Russia to become governess and she lived in Paris.

00:07:49.280 And I thought, oh, this is really interesting. And it was just one of those things you start to, I started to look a little bit more.

00:07:54.340 I found out that she had journals. I found there were volumes of letters. It just got more and more

00:07:59.840 interesting. When I read the biography, the last biography was written in 1992 and I read that and

00:08:05.640 that was just, it was just mind-blowing. I just thought, how do I not know more about this woman?

00:08:09.900 She's amazing. So that was when I first had the idea about writing about her in fiction, but I just

00:08:14.560 didn't know how to do it. I wasn't experienced enough at all, really. So that was my first

00:08:20.280 attempt no what you just said it really resonates with me because I think I was the same when I was

00:08:25.500 even reading about Mary Shelley like if that that was the first thing I was researching for this

00:08:29.160 podcast and you come across Claire and I'm just like oh wow what a fascinating interesting person

00:08:33.600 but because it's focused on Mary Shelley I never really read about what Claire did next and I think

00:08:38.100 like you I just kind of assumed like well that was it she had this sort of exciting few years

00:08:44.120 when she was a teenager and then, but her life continues on. And so I'm excited to talk to you.

00:08:51.060 So what we're going to do is we're going to just kind of talk through her life. And I just wanted

00:08:54.600 to say, I have your book here with me. So the dedication of the book is for every Claire

00:09:02.000 Claremont who fears her story will be forgotten. And I found that so moving because I think that's

00:09:07.660 part of what really strikes me about her story is that she was there. Her name comes up almost

00:09:13.300 as a footnote in all these other people's stories but to her she was the main character and she

00:09:19.480 deserves to be the main character yeah I think one of the things that's quite disturbing I think

00:09:24.940 about about that notion being forgotten is that she she had to kind of do it herself while she

00:09:30.500 was alive she wanted to you know have a career she wanted to teach she wanted to earn her own money

00:09:35.420 but people could know that she was connected with the Shelleys and Byron because it was just too

00:09:40.740 scandalous so when after byron's death in particular in 1824 when people started producing

00:09:46.740 memoirs and biographies of byron mary and claire together both had to do quite a lot of work to say

00:09:52.480 to mainly their friends who were writing these books and say to them please just leave claire

00:09:57.780 out of it you can't you can't include claire so to a certain extent she was actually forced into

00:10:02.820 colluding in her own forgetting as it were which i which she really struggled with and she she had

00:10:08.940 a terrible time over it because it's obviously it's a double-edged thing you know having to sit

00:10:12.760 there and read these accounts of people you were with and they're not they're not accurate and

00:10:18.920 there's nothing you can say you can't you can't say anything about it at all I think I think she

00:10:23.300 really struggled with that for a long time right up until her death really I mean she meets a couple

00:10:30.480 of biographers later in Florence when she's living in Florence towards the end of her life

00:10:34.860 the late 70s and she she starts to kind of tell them some things and and and unburden herself

00:10:41.760 to them but of course by then she's she's also playing some games I think a little bit and she's

00:10:46.520 thinking very much about what she wants the world to know about her if anyone is going to know

00:10:53.240 anything just lost the train of thought of what you originally asked me I'm wittering on. No this

00:10:57.560 is fine that's what the podcast is like but so we're gonna look at at Claire's life beginning

00:11:02.600 to end um and i will say like your your novel i don't think this is going to be first of all this

00:11:07.720 is not going to be spoilers for your book because it's a fact that anybody can find and your book

00:11:13.380 really plays around with time and place and what so we're just going to kind of like hit the facts

00:11:18.400 because people like me and like you initially are just kind of like well she was there that

00:11:23.080 summer mary shelley wrote frankenstein and that's kind of it so yeah but and we could spend the whole

00:11:29.340 podcast talking about this can you explain her parental and step parents sure situation her

00:11:37.920 where did she come from and what was her family it's so complicated yeah it's really interesting 0.69

00:11:43.040 because some details we've only just discovered in the last few years so her mother was a woman

00:11:47.260 called Mary Jane Vile who already had an illegitimate child by someone we don't know who

00:11:55.580 a little boy called Charles when she becomes pregnant with Claire and this Claire is born in

00:12:02.860 1798. Like I said we only found out recently who her real father was. Claire throughout her life

00:12:09.880 believed her father to be some kind of possibly Swiss gentleman. She liked the idea that he was

00:12:16.340 European and her mother I think probably told her a variety of stories but the truth is her

00:12:22.280 father was a man called Sir John Lethbridge, who I think was a baron or the son of a baron.

00:12:28.860 And Mary Jade Vile kind of ran her own pub. And when she gets pregnant with Claire, she's not 1.00

00:12:36.500 like a child. She's in her late 20s. I think she's pushing 30 when she gives birth to Claire.

00:12:41.620 And she actually spends some time just after Claire's birth in a debtor's prison as well.

00:12:47.040 So presumably through the pregnancy stuff, she wasn't able to work and there was no

00:12:51.980 financial support and that's how she ends up in debtor's prison. So it looks as though we don't

00:12:55.680 have any definite information about this but it looks as though Clare started life really in

00:12:59.800 debtor's prison. Mary Jane Valle gets out of debtor's prison and on behalf of a local curate

00:13:07.520 takes on her case and together they write to Sir John Lethbridge and Sir John Lethbridge actually

00:13:13.680 does give financial support on a monthly basis to Mary Jane for Claire's upkeep. That is something

00:13:23.440 we knew nothing about. I don't think Claire knew anything about it either. So fast forward six

00:13:28.300 months, six months after Mary Jane gets out of prison, she winds up in London and she just

00:13:33.080 happens to be living a couple of doors along from William Godwin. William Godwin, famous radical

00:13:39.000 philosopher whose wife Mary Wollstonecraft has recently passed away. It's only about I think 18

00:13:46.520 months to two years after her death when she was giving birth to her daughter Mary Godwin.

00:13:54.660 William Godwin is left then with two small children. He has Mary Wollstonecraft's first

00:14:01.760 daughter Fanny Emily who she had with Gilbert Emily and his own child with Mary Wollstonecraft

00:14:09.000 little Mary Godwin so he's got two daughters to to look after and I think probably you he needed

00:14:16.140 he needed a wife and Mary Jane Vile needed a husband so the two households came together

00:14:20.900 they got married to all intents and purposes it was it was a good marriage they have a little boy

00:14:26.140 called William I just wanted to point out so just now that William is on the scene as well

00:14:30.740 so it's a household of five children yes and each of them has different parents yes

00:14:38.700 combination yes yeah and we think that that's quite I think unusual and remarkable and all

00:14:44.680 this but actually probably it wasn't that unusual given the high rates of women's deaths in in

00:14:52.120 childbirth and there were a lot of mixed households really I think so yeah so Claire and Mary basically

00:14:58.520 grow up together when Mary's about 14 she's sent north to Scotland and it looks as though she's

00:15:04.380 not getting on with her stepmother, Mary Jane. Mary Jane was clearly quite a force of nature

00:15:09.080 because at this point, Mary Jane is also running a children's bookshop and she's publishing

00:15:14.440 children's books as well. And she is the only bookseller and publisher in London who is a woman

00:15:19.580 at this time. So she's quite clearly quite a figure. They don't get on. So Mary sent north

00:15:28.120 to live with the Baxters in Scotland. 1.00

00:15:30.220 And I did write a novel back in 2013 0.99

00:15:35.200 about Isabel Baxter, who Mary befriends

00:15:39.660 when she's living up there in Dundee in Broughty Ferry.

00:15:43.220 So Clare's in the household just with Fanny and William

00:15:47.040 and Charles until Mary comes back when she's 16.

00:15:51.800 Now, by this point, Shelley, young radical poet

00:15:56.020 who thinks Godwin is wonderful has been visiting the household I think Claire and Shelley actually

00:16:01.220 meet first so when Mary returns Shelley comes to visit and it's pretty much instant the chemistry

00:16:10.140 between them Shelley is married of course though to a woman called Harriet so you fast forward

00:16:16.240 not very long after this they Mary and Shelley decide to run off to the continent and they take

00:16:24.060 Claire with them because Claire's got a real facility for languages and also Shelley's quite

00:16:29.300 keen on her. Can we talk about Claire's sorry just the in terms of the facility for languages just

00:16:34.660 when I was reading a bit about Claire to prepare to talk to you about this because she was given

00:16:39.100 a level of education that I think Mary wasn't. Claire was taught in a different a better school

00:16:46.060 or something like that. Their education is slightly different yes like I said Mary sent

00:16:50.480 north and Claire remains in London um but I think also I think Claire just has a natural facility

00:17:00.040 for languages anyway it's not something that Mary's quite so interested in so yes I think

00:17:07.000 there's probably I think there's probably a lot of homeschooling going on as well

00:17:10.780 because it was all so much of it was probably I think um directed by Godwin because he believed

00:17:18.220 girls and boys like Wilson Craft did should have an equal education.

00:17:23.340 Oh, and speaking of the Godwin's beliefs, can we talk about free love for a minute? Because that

00:17:30.400 really affects both Mary and Claire's decisions throughout their lives, the way that they were

00:17:36.000 raised in this radical household. Yeah, I mean, I think the free love influence, I think more

00:17:40.980 comes from shelly than anything i mean certainly with them claire i think really imbibes mary

00:17:48.720 wilson craft's philosophies about women's independence and women working for themselves

00:17:55.120 and earning their own money and you shouldn't have to be married in order to be you know

00:17:59.480 financially secure and all of this kind of stuff um shelly of course takes it all a step further

00:18:05.680 Shelley's really the proponent of free love as in we should all have multiple partners if we want

00:18:11.860 and nobody sticks to one person and all that kind of thing and that's really kind of when later when

00:18:18.020 they come back from the continent and he's kind of pushing Mary towards his friend Hogg he wants

00:18:23.520 her to sleep with him so that there's no there's no possession there's no nobody's clinging on to

00:18:29.020 one other person the problem you have with Shelley is a lot of his philosophies are quite contradictory

00:18:34.720 tree. On the one hand, he was also at this time trying to disinherit himself because he's the

00:18:41.100 son of a baronet, Sir Timothy Shelley, and he doesn't believe in inherited wealth. So he's

00:18:47.100 trying legally to disinherit himself so he doesn't inherit the house from his father. But at the same

00:18:53.500 time, he depends on his father's money to be able to pay for things because Shelley isn't going to

00:18:59.860 get a job, is he? He's got no interest in doing that. So you've got the same thing, I think,

00:19:05.100 with the sort of free love philosophy as well, where they run off to the continent, Shelley,

00:19:11.080 Mary and Clare. Then they come back after a few months. And when they land back at Dover,

00:19:18.080 they've got no money to get back to London. So he writes to Harriet and asks Harriet, his wife,

00:19:24.180 the wife he has abandoned to pay for them to come back which she does thinking that shelly is coming

00:19:30.380 back to her only when shelly meets her he says no that's not what i'm thinking at all i'm thinking

00:19:36.440 a lovely big commune where we all live together it'll all be lovely and and harriet's just like

00:19:41.580 are you kidding harriet's pregnant with her second child by shelly so it's and now mary of course is

00:19:47.620 is pregnant too so it's yeah free love indeed which turns out to be rather expensive

00:19:52.980 good point great point so there is sort of this um trio actually just side note I don't know if

00:20:02.460 you saw the the Mary Shelley movie from a few years ago where Elle Fanning was playing Mary

00:20:07.660 Shelley yeah so the two recently like within the last couple months the actress Belle Powley who

00:20:13.520 played Claire and the actor Douglas Booth who played Shelley they just got married in real

00:20:17.540 life they met on that movie and fell in love I was like actually this is beautiful

00:20:21.640 it's amazing isn't it yeah they're a lovely couple they are they seem like a lovely couple

00:20:29.720 and I mentioned that to my friend and she saw the movie as well and she's like yeah those two

00:20:33.160 had real chemistry in that movie it was almost distracting but the Claire Shelley Mary so you

00:20:41.140 you talk about this in your book which is again a novel but Claire and Mary are so similar in age

00:20:46.640 and they're raised together and they've quite opposite personalities but then they're both

00:20:51.280 it's like the three of them, Mary, Claire and Shelley are together. And it's always been a

00:20:56.240 sort of like, what was that situation? What was Claire's role in this relationship? And I don't

00:21:02.660 know how much we could ever really know, but it sort of taints both of the girls really by having

00:21:08.820 run off with this man as teenagers, does it? Oh yeah. I mean, it's, you're talking about,

00:21:13.040 this is the Regency era. This is, you know, Jane Austen, you know, they run off the year after

00:21:19.320 the publication of Pride and Prejudice I mean they are both doing Lydia Bennet when they're

00:21:25.280 doing this they're ruining the reputations and it's interesting that it's Claire's mother Mary

00:21:29.520 Jane who runs after them I mean she she you know William Godwin the father is at home just going

00:21:35.100 oh my god what we're going to do Mary Jane actually gets in a coach goes to the coast and

00:21:40.640 then gets a boat across to France herself and chases after them and she does get hold of Claire

00:21:46.060 and tries to persuade her to come back but you know Claire's 16 and having the time of her life

00:21:50.620 she's just like no I'm having a huge adventure absolutely not and so when you sort of fast

00:21:56.060 forward two years later when Claire's 18 or 17 just before she meets Byron she and Shelley and

00:22:04.100 Mary have been living together on and off sometimes it breaks down when Mary and Claire fall out

00:22:11.200 and Mary's like I've had enough she needs to leave me alone and and also of course this is

00:22:15.880 the period when mary goes through the loss of her first child as well and there's a sense that

00:22:21.980 perhaps claire doesn't quite understand or or it's certainly a sense from mary of needing i think

00:22:29.300 probably quiet and calm and peace around her and shelley doesn't really know quite how to handle it

00:22:35.080 so he finds it easier to just you know let's go off for a big walk with claire and leave mary to

00:22:39.680 it so there's a kind of there's lots of tensions going on i think between all three of them at

00:22:45.740 this point just before claire meets meets byron and claire does go off and live for a while and

00:22:53.800 in line my she goes off on sort of little jaunts just when when mary's really had enough so byron

00:23:00.880 enters the story how did they meet each other well as far as we know and and there's there's

00:23:08.480 lots of different um stories about this but as far as we can tell it comes through Claire writing

00:23:16.420 to Byron and asking for an audition and because he's one of the directors on the Drury Lane

00:23:22.600 theatre and she wants to come and audition for him because she has a she does have a remarkable

00:23:27.560 singing voice he just ignores the first couple of letters but she's quite persistent and she

00:23:32.180 keeps writing and all we know is that eventually he says yes and ta-da it seems to have happened

00:23:40.320 from there the question mark over it and you see this in biographies really from oh I would say

00:23:47.560 about the the 1990s onwards in particular this sense of Claire being the one who came up with

00:23:56.440 this idea and really ran with it and really pushed it and you'll see lots and lots of phrases in lots

00:24:02.940 of biographies about her you know laying siege to Byron and you know all these kind of battle

00:24:09.680 metaphors and stuff and really kind of blaming her as well it's a way I think of later on when

00:24:16.320 subsequent things when they don't work out it's like it's her own fault she pushed for this she

00:24:20.720 pushed for this and it's interesting because William Graham who is a young journalist who

00:24:26.080 goes to visit Clare towards the ends of her life in Florence records that Clare told him that it

00:24:34.940 was Shelley's idea that she write to Byron in the first place because Shelley wanted to meet Byron

00:24:39.780 that Shelley was Byron mad and Shelley's biographer Richard Holmes is probably written I think one of

00:24:46.120 the best biographies ever written Shelley the pursuit it's astonishing the amount of detail

00:24:50.640 he gets hold of is incredible he also thinks that it's a bit of a put-up job that Shelley

00:24:57.880 encourages Claire it's Shelley's idea and he encourages Claire to write to Byron to try and

00:25:03.440 hook him so she's I mean he's really kind of using Claire as bait to try and hook this this

00:25:09.540 poet and we know also that Mary knew about it as well because Claire takes Mary to meet Byron

00:25:15.380 after the first couple of meetings so it kind of complicates the picture it means that it's not

00:25:20.260 quite so clear that it was Claire who was chasing Byron but she was kind of pushed towards him

00:25:26.300 that's the kind of version that I've I've kind of gone with I think in the novel not not to

00:25:31.180 absolve Claire of blame but just I think to balance it out a little bit better yeah because

00:25:38.060 I think I've come across the interpretation that she saw Shelley like Mary was with Shelley so she

00:25:44.960 wanted to be also with a great celebrity a great literary figure as well and so she just harassed

00:25:52.420 Byron into meeting with her but it's more nuanced than just that even if that maybe was like part

00:25:58.780 unconsciously what she was thinking yeah there's this this idea that she um she wanted um to outdo

00:26:05.340 Mary she wanted to to get someone even more glamorous and and it still seems quite odd though

00:26:12.660 because Byron was such a star at this time.

00:26:15.380 He was such a literary star and she's nobody.

00:26:19.500 She has no connections.

00:26:22.360 The thing that probably would have interested him the most

00:26:24.660 is her connection to William Godwin

00:26:26.300 because Byron was a big fan of Godwin's.

00:26:29.920 But yeah, it is all quite strange.

00:26:31.840 It is all quite shrouded in sort of claim and counterclaim.

00:26:36.560 It depends on who you kind of want to go with, I think.

00:26:39.780 And certainly for fans of Byron, I think Claire is always going to be a sticking point for them because of how he treats her.

00:26:51.300 And I think it kind of absolves Byron a lot if you can blame Claire for it in the first place, if you can say, well, look.

00:26:59.200 And that's what Byron says. Byron's clearly trying to absolve himself much later on because that's what he says.

00:27:05.840 oh, you know, this girl who comes, you know, traipsing after me, traveling all these hundreds

00:27:11.400 of miles, you know, to unphilosophize me, he says, he doesn't want to be blamed for what's

00:27:16.160 happening either. So how do they all get to Geneva for that famous summer?

00:27:24.060 Well, of course, Byron has separated from his wife, Lady Annabella. And it's quite shocking,

00:27:30.140 because of course, this is an age when divorce isn't supposed to happen. And there's all sorts

00:27:35.140 of rumors about exactly why his wife is separating from him. They have a little girl. And then

00:27:43.620 there's the rumors of sodomy and all sorts of things coming out. And Byron is really forced

00:27:49.440 into exile. He has to leave the country because they're really gunning for him. So he's very

00:27:55.060 angry and he's leaving in a big huff. Shelley has been talking for quite some time about

00:28:00.100 whether should he go and live in Europe? Should he stay in England? He can't decide what to do

00:28:04.800 because he's getting annoyed by creditors.

00:28:08.180 He's also, he's lost some chancery suit as well.

00:28:11.320 He's constantly preoccupied with money and money situations.

00:28:15.300 And so he's in a bad temper as well.

00:28:17.420 And I think in the midst of all of this,

00:28:19.680 just before Byron leaves,

00:28:21.760 this seems to have been when,

00:28:23.460 well, we know this is when Claire spends the night with Byron.

00:28:26.420 We don't know how often it happens.

00:28:27.780 We don't know how many times they see each other,

00:28:31.440 but we know that obviously this is when she conceives.

00:28:34.800 she doesn't know that necessarily so Byron goes off to Geneva in May and Claire decides

00:28:43.440 or says to him you know we'll come with you we're going to come to we're going to come to and she

00:28:47.300 suggests it to Mary and Shelley who are all for it they're just like yes let's let's do that let's go

00:28:52.760 and so they actually I think they actually reach Geneva before Byron does and they take one house

00:29:00.040 and Byron takes the other, Byron takes the bigger house, of course.

00:29:03.820 And then the Shelleys move again and they have this little cottage

00:29:06.580 that's nearer Villa Diodati because Byron has all this money.

00:29:10.660 Byron is so rich.

00:29:11.700 This is the other thing.

00:29:12.660 He's not just a literary star.

00:29:13.760 He's a rich, handsome, you know, dreadful man

00:29:18.940 who's doing very, very well in one respect.

00:29:23.020 And so they have this little cottage sort of down by the water

00:29:26.960 and it's clear who introduces Byron and Shelley which I always think is quite a fascinating

00:29:33.240 thing really that that she's and I and I have this in the novel quite a few times about her

00:29:38.400 being positioned between them because she is the one who who brings them together on the pier

00:29:43.080 at the edge of the lake and that's the first time that they meet each other and I do think that's

00:29:48.460 partly it's not just the fact that it's a few nights later the storms are happening because

00:29:54.120 of the volcano in Indonesia causing all sorts of upset with the weather in the Villa Diodati the

00:30:00.340 whole group of them telling ghost stories all of this kind of stuff it's not just because

00:30:04.660 of Frankenstein that that summer matters but it's been blown up so much because of course

00:30:11.000 Byron Shelley these two genius poets coming together and meeting and discussing things

00:30:16.580 And that's really what kind of pushes Claire out of the picture in terms of literary biography, because she isn't a literary genius. Mary and Byron and Shelley are the literary geniuses and Claire isn't. For all her talents, for all her intelligence and her education, she isn't one of them.

00:30:38.160 isn't there a quote i'm not gonna ask you to recite the quote but i'm sure you've come across

00:30:43.480 it where she said something about you know what why don't you write also claire and she was like

00:30:48.160 in my family you either need to be a genius or don't even bother because it's not just like

00:30:54.080 mary and shelly and byron who she's spending her time with but also her father and then also mary's

00:30:58.980 mother and then her mother mary jane is this publisher like there's such a high level of

00:31:03.500 achievement so i can see that that would be very daunting yeah but i think she was also quite um

00:31:09.080 she was quite a bold person anyway and i think she did have she had that early confidence that

00:31:15.400 that you have at that age at 18 you know she's been surrounded by genius her whole life as you

00:31:21.040 see brought up in the household of william godwin mary wilson crafts you words all around her kind

00:31:28.020 of thing so i don't think she's intimidated by by genius necessarily and she's very supportive

00:31:33.380 of it as well and she's always supportive of mary's genius throughout her life and she refers

00:31:37.320 to it as genius which we know is is a word that's nearly always applied to men and you know it's the

00:31:43.280 old you know men have genius women have talent kind of thing and she she's very forceful about

00:31:48.180 mary's genius so i don't think she was necessarily intimidated by it yes that there is that quote of

00:31:53.980 her saying you know if you can't think of something you know that by its nature is the

00:31:58.140 most original thing ever then just don't bother but she was she was clever and she could appreciate

00:32:06.180 literature properly and she could hold her own I think in conversations there's never any sense 0.98

00:32:11.000 that she doesn't really kind of know what to say or that she's saying something stupid or foolish 0.88

00:32:18.740 i don't think yeah and i think that's also sort of an impression that one might get about claire 0.93

00:32:24.180 claremont just from the way she's often talked about just a little bit or she's kind of a small

00:32:28.580 role documentaries or films or things like that she's just kind of marries like silly sister it's

00:32:33.860 kind of like lydia bennett put into this summer in geneva where it's like no she actually is like 0.83

00:32:39.620 very intelligent and like you said she has this facility for languages and stuff like she can

00:32:43.340 yeah she can keep up yeah and she I mean she wrote she tried to write as well she wrote um

00:32:49.220 a short story called The Pole and she she was starting work on on a short story called The

00:32:54.520 Idiot which we don't really have I don't think we've got anything left of that so she was

00:32:59.160 thinking about writing too but primarily she was kind of in training to be a teacher she wanted to 0.99

00:33:05.900 teach and and teach music so she was thinking in in terms of a of a career she wasn't trying to

00:33:13.100 ensnare Byron and she didn't want to get married all of that was was very genuine she had these

00:33:19.120 she really took on a lot of Shelley and principles early on that she really didn't abandon she she

00:33:25.300 she stuck with them which I think is really interesting because that's really kind of what

00:33:29.340 sees her through I think the tragedies to come as things just kind of implode really well let's talk

00:33:37.740 about that implosion which um part of that is what happens with her child with byron and actually

00:33:44.980 sorry pause i want to talk about names for a second because we've been calling her claire

00:33:50.000 all along but her name was jane and then she chose to change her name to claire which one of

00:33:54.640 her middle names is clara so it didn't come out of nowhere and her surname was claremont but

00:34:00.600 that was a surname her mother Mary Jane had invented because yes right yeah so there's just

00:34:08.420 a lot of name and in your book you play around with this what she's called at different times

00:34:11.920 so I just wanted to talk about that for a second yeah I think I think the naming thing is really

00:34:16.020 interesting because yeah she she lives by the name Claire Claremont by this point and both those

00:34:22.860 names are invented her her first name is an invention and so is her surname although she

00:34:28.380 doesn't know her surname is an invention she thinks Claremont is a real man who fathered her

00:34:35.580 um so I do think the the question of names is is really interesting particularly for women

00:34:44.660 because they lose their names on on marrying because then she has a child the shot she has

00:34:51.240 with Byron is a daughter who initially she calls Elba which is a play on her nickname that so Lord

00:34:59.480 Byron is LB and people call him LB like LB for a Lord Byron so then she calls the daughter Elba

00:35:06.320 presumably is kind of an ode to him and he's like no let's change this child's name to Allegra

00:35:12.640 actually so names are just changing names are changing and there's a lot of status in a name

00:35:19.380 as well i mean it's interesting that byron chooses the name allegra which is much more classical

00:35:24.180 those kinds of classical names have more status because one thing he does do he does he does

00:35:29.780 acknowledge allegra as his own he doesn't try and pretend i mean apart from that there is that quote

00:35:34.940 where he says you know is the brat mine he writes to to one of his friends and he just says well you

00:35:41.220 i i know it is and it's so much as one can know these things but he does he does take on board

00:35:47.000 that the child is this little girl is his so he is very conscious of himself as a Byron and that

00:35:54.600 his daughter is a Byron as well she is Allegra Byron he doesn't he doesn't deny her his name

00:36:01.600 and I know I mean these days we sort of think well that's how big of that was great but uh in

00:36:07.360 those days I think that was probably quite important and but it does feed into why Claire

00:36:12.940 is ready and willing to hand her daughter over to this man i have had a couple of people ask me

00:36:20.000 when she finds out that she's pregnant to bar and why is she so willing to to give her child up 1.00

00:36:26.100 especially when you think that her mother managed with two children she wasn't married although 0.98

00:36:31.680 her mother did end up in debtors prison so maybe didn't manage quite so well it wasn't easy she's

00:36:37.520 18 years old and she has nothing she really has nothing the best contact in the world she has is

00:36:42.700 William Godwin, her stepfather, who is broke. He is perpetually broke. So there's no money at her

00:36:48.040 back. The only kind of support she's got is from Shelley. Shelley, at this point, is currently

00:36:53.580 supporting two women, Mary and Harriet, his two children by Harriet. He's got a child with Mary.

00:36:59.300 He's supporting Claire as well. And his big fear, if Claire kept the child, was that his father

00:37:06.780 would hear about this and everybody would just assume that Claire's child was Shelley's by Claire

00:37:15.060 that this would be the final straw and his father really would cut off all financial support that

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00:40:09.940 So even though he like wanted to be cut off from his father,

00:40:13.540 he didn't want to be cut off from his father's money.

00:40:16.400 Yeah.

00:40:17.180 Like I said, this is the contradiction with him, you know,

00:40:19.900 wanting to be disinherited.

00:40:21.360 I don't want to inherit the title.

00:40:23.160 I don't want to inherit this grand mansion, field place, blah, blah, blah.

00:40:27.800 But yes, could you please still give me my money so that I,

00:40:31.880 like I said so I don't have to get a job so it's he's still got quite a lot of money I mean it's

00:40:36.820 not like he's impoverished or anything like that but it would it would cause problems there's also

00:40:43.180 it's interesting much later on a few years down the line when I don't mean to jump ahead I'm

00:40:49.240 hoping I'm not doing that too much but when Claire is begging Byron to let her see her child

00:40:55.700 and she says she comes up with this scheme to Shelley and saying look why don't we rescue her

00:41:00.840 she's in a convent why don't we go and rescue her and Shelly's horrified she's like no what if

00:41:05.500 Byron challenges me to a duel I might die and you're just kind of like you know Byron's too

00:41:14.600 too big and strong and rich and and even Mary Mary says the same thing she says is this what

00:41:20.840 you want you seriously Claire do you want Shelly to to fight Byron and and he'll die and in any

00:41:29.280 case barry and she said he has all the money all these resources he would just hunt down you and

00:41:34.160 your child and take her back anyway so there's no point so yes it's she has nothing she is not

00:41:40.340 in a position of power and she's she goes very quickly i think from being in a position of

00:41:46.160 she's an 18 year old girl with all these plus points you know she's attractive she's intelligent

00:41:51.740 she's mixing with these sort of literary geniuses and then suddenly it's really kind of all taken 0.92

00:41:57.900 away because she's the truth of the matter is that she's a penniless 18 year old single mother

00:42:04.240 and you have nothing you really do have nothing yeah and that's the thing that's where I kind of

00:42:11.360 one might understand why her mother went to try and bring her home age 16 because what her mother

00:42:17.980 went through being the being the single mother being a debtor's person she could she could see 0.74

00:42:23.000 a long view of where Claire was headed whereas Claire was just in the moment having so much fun 0.80

00:42:28.620 I know and I do think it's such a shame that her mother didn't tell her the truth about her origins

00:42:34.940 and tell the truth about her past because she might have been able to advise her daughter

00:42:39.780 Claire didn't tell her mother about the child that she had with with Byron and you just kind

00:42:46.720 of think her mother would have been a good person to have had by her side and to have fought for her 0.96

00:42:52.440 now she might not have i mean mary jane vile might have taken the opposite line she might

00:42:56.940 have said yeah absolutely you have to give your child over to byron there's no point in even

00:43:01.320 fighting it just do it and don't think twice about it but you you can't help feeling she

00:43:07.560 kind of she actually kind of needed a stronger support i think behind her certainly if she was

00:43:13.720 going to take on on somebody like byron and she did that's a remarkable thing she actually did

00:43:19.620 to take him on i mean her letters to him after she's handed allegra over to him are are astonishing

00:43:26.600 you know she she really fights for her well i was just thinking you know if she has someone

00:43:31.080 she had that own strength in herself to be fighting for her daughter but if she had someone

00:43:34.880 in her corner besides these like though it just you know re taking the story and putting the

00:43:40.980 emphasis on claire in the background shelly and mary are just kind of these flakes like they don't

00:43:45.740 know any better than she does what to do like they're all just kind of 20 year old doing the

00:43:50.640 best they can but they don't know what they're doing they have skills but their skills are not

00:43:54.880 to live life well no i think particularly shelly it's funny when i when i first started to write

00:44:03.460 about claire was back in 1998 and i mean i still think shelly is is the greatest poet that that

00:44:12.000 England ever produced I think he's astonishing and I think at that age you're kind of you kind

00:44:17.300 of fall for Shelley I think I was probably in love with Shelley as well as as you would be at

00:44:22.440 that age because he's so radical and revolutionary and he's kind of sexy Byron is just not so much

00:44:28.200 I mean he's he is mad bad and dangerous to know but he just doesn't come across I think as as

00:44:33.200 well as Shelley does it's not until you're older I think and you look back writing this again I

00:44:39.520 just thought yes Byron is is you know you really lock up your daughters you don't want your young

00:44:47.800 18 year old girl anywhere near that man but Shelley is actually the really dangerous one

00:44:52.360 to me to my mind because well you only have to look at it I mean this is a man when he dies in

00:44:57.960 1822 when he drowns he leaves a trail of death behind him you know there's there's Fanny Emily

00:45:05.780 There's his first wife, Harriet Shelley, who walks into Serpentine and drowns herself.

00:45:13.220 There are all the children, the children who have died, William and Clara.

00:45:17.400 It's just a lack of care and consideration for other people.

00:45:23.100 He's just not able to do it.

00:45:24.740 And you can say, well, yes, he's a literary genius and he's a great poet and he is, but he wasn't good.

00:45:31.040 He wasn't good for women and children is really what I mean.

00:45:34.080 And I think if he hadn't died young, I'm not sure Mary would have survived many more years with him.

00:45:42.460 Didn't he make everybody do this demented vegetarian diet where they only ate potatoes or something like that?

00:45:50.340 There's quite a lot of stories like that about him. I don't know how much of them are true.

00:45:55.420 I think certainly he was someone who liked fads and he would take up with things and then discard them quickly.

00:46:03.080 quite quickly but yeah but he he did he did stay a vegetarian throughout his life and he was also

00:46:07.960 you know he supported the abolition of slavery he he refused to have sugar for example in his tea

00:46:14.220 he would sweeten his tea with raisins he wouldn't use he wouldn't use oh wow yeah but also good for

00:46:18.980 him but also oh yeah exactly you would just do without the the raisins really but um yeah so he

00:46:25.460 he was he had principles but some of the principles weren't the right ones and i think

00:46:31.340 one of the things I have Claire say in the novel is about you know the the famous defense of poetry

00:46:38.880 that that he writes where he talks about you know a poet is a nightingale it sits I think it sits in

00:46:44.360 its own solitude sings its own song and cheers itself in its own solitude type thing and then

00:46:49.360 you look at his life and he just had to constantly have women around him he just had to have this

00:46:52.720 harem of women constantly and he was constantly having crushes on other women I mean Mary just

00:46:57.460 had to put up with him constantly writing poems to this woman writing poems to that woman and

00:47:02.440 oh she he's in love with this woman now and in love with that woman and yes you can see well

00:47:07.020 that's he's you know holding true to his principles of free love and no possessions but you just kind

00:47:12.020 of think by this point this woman has given birth you know four or five times to your children

00:47:18.060 you've got obligations there are things that you need to start standing up for and they're not

00:47:25.060 having crushes it's actually trying to just you get your children to adulthood without dying

00:47:31.900 first can you do that and I think when Allegra when the news comes through of Allegra dying

00:47:38.660 in 1822 in the spring of 1822 and he talks about having this nightmare of seeing this

00:47:46.680 naked female child rising up out of the sea and accusing him. And he is fighting with Mary all

00:47:56.060 the time. They're just quarrelling. And of course, Mary's had a miscarriage. And he rushes off to the

00:48:01.740 village at one point to try and buy prussic acid, which is a classic suicide poison. I do think

00:48:08.520 when he then goes sailing off to meet Byron, he leaves Lerucci and goes up to Livorno to

00:48:14.700 to see baron with edward williams i think i do think on the sail back he was

00:48:20.160 he was sailing into what he knew would be absolute disaster because the day that they sail out

00:48:26.420 there's a terrible storm coming and no other boats are going out that day no nobody else is sailing

00:48:31.920 and he insists on still going out and i think by that point i think i i think there's an element

00:48:39.380 he just couldn't live with himself anymore and you can you can kind of see there's just there's

00:48:44.440 only so much tragedy you can deal with and i do think allegra was i think allegra was last year

00:48:49.820 i think he was devastated by allegra's death so yeah mary shelley she had one surviving child

00:48:57.560 like who grew into adulthood right the others were died as infants of various diseases or she

00:49:03.060 miscarried allegra died of very young age five i think of typhus or something like that in the

00:49:10.160 convent yeah yeah well you're just saying the the string of deaths behind him so if we this is kind

00:49:16.560 of where we often leave claire so i'm excited to get into the next era which is allegra has died

00:49:22.940 shelly has died mary kind of devotes herself to memorializing shelly and you know publishing his

00:49:29.340 work and advocating for him and what does claire do next well first of all claire had a plan even

00:49:36.520 before Shelley's death what she was going to do was go to Vienna where her brother Charles

00:49:41.220 was working as a professor and to teach there she's going to teach music and singing so she

00:49:49.140 does she goes to Vienna it all goes kind of horribly wrong well before she goes to Vienna

00:49:54.960 sorry how many times have you said that sorry no it's fine like it's her life it's not your words

00:50:02.820 but everything just constantly keeps going horribly wrong for her yeah it does really well

00:50:08.420 she has a little sort of romantic interlude after the death of shelly um there's the there's a man

00:50:13.460 called um edward trelawney who who appears and he's he's befriended byron and shelly just before

00:50:20.160 shelly's death and he's he's kind of like a big sort of byronic figure and she has a bit of a

00:50:25.360 fling with him but it's not enough to make her think oh i'll just hang around with him so she

00:50:30.820 she sticks to her plan she goes to Vienna she gets very ill I think she probably really has a

00:50:35.480 breakdown the equivalent of a breakdown she's physically ill she says later on in life that

00:50:39.620 she almost died when she was in Vienna she got so ill and there's also the secret police are on to

00:50:47.240 both Charles and Claire because they've gotten wind of connections with Godwin and Shelley and

00:50:54.240 so she kind of she kind of has to leave Vienna so she's not in Vienna for very long so instead of

00:50:59.920 going west though or going back to england she decides to go further east she goes to russia

00:51:05.680 i do think it's partly getting away from the name she's obviously hoping the further away she goes

00:51:12.260 the better chance she has of being anonymous and not being connected with godwin and shelly and so

00:51:18.540 on so yeah she she gets employed as a governess with with really with one rich russian family

00:51:25.860 after another English governesses were really popular and in demand in Russia at this time

00:51:31.760 the Russian the the richest Russian families the nobles they all spoke French they didn't speak

00:51:37.700 Russian they spoke French so that suited Claire perfectly because she can she was fluent but she

00:51:44.300 could also read and obviously speak English and other languages and it was a very kind of um it's

00:51:50.240 quite a sort of different setup from we think of governesses in England in a very kind of Jane Eyre

00:51:56.440 type way you know it's quite grim and austere and you're in your little governess's bedroom and it's

00:52:02.920 all you know quite horrible or you're exploited by your employer in some horrible way. In Russia

00:52:09.620 it was her letters her letters that she writes about life in Russia as a governess are just

00:52:16.900 incredible. They're just so full of life and they're so vibrant. And it is crazy. It is

00:52:21.700 absolutely crazy. In Russian families, the governess was part of the family, like a cousin 1.00

00:52:26.060 or an aunt or whatever. So you were expected to partake in all the family events and all the rest

00:52:31.860 of it. And you ate with a family. You didn't eat with the servants in the kitchen. You ate with

00:52:36.320 the family. And I have her being quite cheeky to her employer because she is, she is quite,

00:52:42.400 she describes parties and all sorts of events and everything going on so it was very

00:52:48.340 it was a it was in one sense it was freer because I think it was socially much more freer intellectually

00:52:56.080 it wasn't because they had to be careful the year that I have picked 1825 so it's three years after

00:53:03.400 the death of Shelley and Allegra and she's in she's in Russia you know at the end of 1825

00:53:08.240 there will be an assassination of the Tsar by the Decembrists because it's in December of 1825

00:53:15.460 and then the forces of conservatism really do take over so it's already a place where you have

00:53:22.060 to be careful politically what you say and it gets much worse after after 1825 so she she's got lots

00:53:28.880 to say about life there but I think you even if and this is I think where Claire really comes into

00:53:34.880 her own, because even if she didn't know the Shelleys, even if she hadn't met Byron, if she

00:53:41.060 had gone to Russia and we had these two volumes of amazing letters and journals just on their own,

00:53:48.040 what an amazing account we would have of this woman who lived independently until she was 79

00:53:54.260 in various parts of Europe. It's just extraordinary. And to write about it all so well.

00:54:00.340 And didn't Mary Shelley, I think she wrote in a letter herself, she just,

00:54:03.520 she complimented she said claire writes the best letters of anyone she knows

00:54:07.020 yes and and they are they're so detailed they're so full of life she's also very

00:54:11.640 i think she really connects with a modern audience particularly because she's so emotionally frank

00:54:18.300 in her letters and we're used to particularly particularly male literary figures in their

00:54:24.360 letters they can be quite formal they they like to employ lots of rhetorical devices because

00:54:29.280 they've all had a classical education so they're all playing clever tricks in their letters Claire

00:54:35.400 hasn't had that kind of education she just goes right to the heart of the matter she's very direct

00:54:39.520 in her letters and I mean she writes beautifully but she also writes really honestly and really

00:54:44.640 clearly and it's the kind of writing I think that we tend to value now much more than the sort of

00:54:50.560 rhetorical fanciness we don't we don't really appreciate that in the same way well it's so much

00:54:55.880 more um i mean to me and just to the average person i would say it's so much more easy to

00:55:02.060 read it's more relatable like i don't know all the illusions that someone with that education

00:55:06.640 are making where they're they're writing to impress other intellectuals but she's just

00:55:11.080 writing to explain what she's doing and i think that's so much more appealing i think quite often

00:55:16.080 the the male literary figures are often writing deliberately to obscure meaning they're they're

00:55:22.320 they're trying to keep things as obscure as possible almost they don't want to reveal too

00:55:27.580 much of themselves and she's the exact opposite she's she wants to get things off her chest she's

00:55:32.660 saying exactly how she feels about certain things in a certain situation and so she I mean

00:55:38.200 she continues living on as an independent woman which I think is impressive and also speaks to

00:55:46.480 the influence of Mary Wollstonecraft's writings when she was growing up but then also

00:55:51.180 kind of the shelly stuff like she really it clearly was important to her to remain independent

00:55:57.760 she could have probably married someone at some point but she chose to never do that

00:56:03.580 oh yeah she had she had quite a few marriage proposals over the years and there's there's

00:56:08.940 one moment where a female friend of hers mrs mason from italy who was um lady mount cashel

00:56:15.340 another woman living in living in sin she says I think later on to Mary oh it's a shame that

00:56:23.060 Claire didn't accept Thomas Love Peacock's proposal Thomas Love Peacock really liked her

00:56:28.260 he's a writer and he has a he has you know a big manor house in England and I just I always thought

00:56:35.280 whenever I read that bit I just thought which would you rather have by the way Thomas Love

00:56:39.880 peacock claire found him a deadly dull boar and used to hide when he came to the house that's and

00:56:47.220 he was much older than she was as well and i just thought yes would you would you rather be living

00:56:52.160 in some dull old manor with mr boring hidden away somewhere in england or would you rather have your

00:56:59.140 own apartment in paris and be living independently yes not a difficult choice to make she's i think

00:57:05.900 very honest again about about that too because she doesn't need that status she's not chasing

00:57:10.880 marital status or anything like that it frees her up to to do these extraordinary things i mean

00:57:17.140 after she she's in russia for quite a long time almost a decade and then she comes back to england

00:57:23.500 for a while and she helps nurse her mother as well when her mother's dying and it's just

00:57:28.740 immediately her mother dies that she decides to go to paris and and live and work there and she

00:57:35.240 spends most of the 1840s in Paris as well all of this like everything you just said about her 0.53

00:57:41.060 would you rather like you live in this house with this boring man or like have the apartment in 0.98

00:57:46.140 Paris I'm like of course the apartment in Paris but it's just so rare that a woman in this time

00:57:51.360 period in this era is able to make that choice because often because of financial reasons

00:57:56.920 entirely because of financial reasons people end up having to marry the boring man but she 1.00

00:58:03.820 always wanted to have her own money. So like she was teaching, she was a governess,

00:58:08.680 like she always found a way. And that wasn't a means to an end to go off and happily or not

00:58:13.780 happily, but just to marry somebody and live that conventional life. I just find it so impressive

00:58:19.120 because it's rare, even today, culturally, I'm sure it's the same in Scotland as it is where

00:58:24.720 I'm in Canada or in the United States. Like there's such a pervasive pressure on young women

00:58:31.660 to get married have children and it's strange like to me as an unmarried person like I've

00:58:39.920 felt this pressure and I'm just like why why does everyone care so I can't even imagine the pressure

00:58:45.640 that Claire was up against in the 1800s oh yeah I remember when I first went I went to buy my first

00:58:52.580 flat and it was in 1996 and I went to the bank to see about a mortgage that was when I got my first

00:58:58.020 like proper grown-up job when i i got a lecturing job at at the university of st andrews thought

00:59:04.420 right i'm going to buy a flat and i remember going to various banks you know to see what mortgage

00:59:10.560 um deals they had to offer and you're just surrounded by posters of couples heterosexual

00:59:16.880 couples um because that's who they're selling their mortgage deals to because that's the ideal

00:59:22.580 family unit and I think it's it's really interesting that we as a society particularly

00:59:30.360 just now are so in love with the Jane Austen ideal of marriage and even even though she was

00:59:39.800 satirizing the marriage market she she never suggested an alternative to marriage it was

00:59:46.620 always you had to get a good marriage and it's almost like that's we're still in love with that

00:59:50.580 idea of it that's still the romantic ideal but also the practical and the financial ideal

00:59:55.320 so yes to have someone like Claire I'm sure that's partly actually why I liked her story so much

01:00:02.120 because I was single I was working for myself I was living on my own and here's this woman

01:00:08.360 doing it you know 200 years before as well and it's not easy because nothing's set up society

01:00:16.620 isn't set up it's not encouraging you to do this it doesn't like you to do this it doesn't like 0.74

01:00:20.700 women to do this on their own so you're battling all the time and that's what she was doing she 0.99

01:00:26.080 was constantly having to you know go from job to job she never stayed too long in one particular 1.00

01:00:33.360 place it is a difficult life it's not it's not easy she's she's living all over the place but

01:00:38.640 it's also a life of incident and adventure and and love there's a lot of there's a lot of passion

01:00:46.860 there's a lot of you know she does she was someone who was still I think sexually active when she was

01:00:56.040 in middle age and even when she was an old lady her niece Paula when these two young well one's

01:01:03.700 younger than the other William Graham and Edward Sills but the two journalists who come to well

01:01:07.840 one's a journalist and the other's a collector of letters and they they you know wine and diner to

01:01:12.400 to try and get her Byron Shelley letters access to the Byron Shelley letters her niece Paula talks

01:01:18.360 about you know her aunt flirting with them and being all coy and and all this kind of stuff

01:01:23.460 yeah she she was like that she was a sexually a sexual being and that's something else we tend 0.56

01:01:32.540 to kind of want to crush especially as women get older and she didn't she was she was living in

01:01:38.160 and I'm quite sure I can't I don't want to give away spoilers either about the man she is with

01:01:45.460 in Paris and I don't have proof as I say in the the afterword for of the novel I don't have proof

01:01:50.840 that this is who she had the affair with but she was having an affair in Paris and I do

01:01:57.080 feel very strongly that it was this man this particular individual which of course had I think

01:02:04.540 it come out at that particular time would have been extremely shocking I love I'm just trying

01:02:12.400 to I can't I can't think of someone else to compare her to who is this maybe Samantha and

01:02:18.420 sex in the city or something just somebody who's like a woman aged 40 plus who is just like 0.69

01:02:24.980 independent and a sexual being and just enjoying her life and is not hewing to those conventional

01:02:32.400 I don't know I love I love that she never gave up and was like fine I'll just marry someone I'll

01:02:37.500 just become conservative and boring like that's just not who she was and again as somebody who

01:02:43.780 just didn't know anything she did after the summer in Geneva I'm just like this is better than I

01:02:48.580 could have ever imagined for her that she just continued being herself yeah yes absolutely I

01:02:54.620 mean it I think towards the end she did convert to Catholicism um in the last couple of years of

01:03:01.740 her life and certainly we also now have a fragment of what looks like a memoir where she

01:03:07.820 she calls both Byron and Shelley monsters of um free love and and and you know selfish beings and

01:03:16.780 and all this kind of stuff so it does look like she's going back on some of her attitudes when

01:03:22.020 she was younger which wouldn't be terribly surprising she's very elderly and at this point

01:03:26.280 she's been living in Italy a Catholic country for a long time and I also think the conversion

01:03:32.760 to Catholicism is because she had money and she wanted a proper headstone in a proper cemetery

01:03:39.500 and she was she wanted some kind of you know not quite a massive tomb but she wanted some kind of

01:03:47.720 recognition about about who she was in death because that's her final thing about you know 0.67

01:03:53.780 she doesn't want to you know end her life in oblivion or you know for her story to be lost

01:03:58.720 in oblivion as her life has been and so I was just double checking the date so Mary Shelley died

01:04:03.740 about 20 years ish 25 years before Claire did yes so even that where the two of them are so parallel

01:04:12.120 like they were so they're just a few months apart in age and then they grew up together sisters

01:04:15.960 there's sort of two sides and you play with this in your book quite a few times you know the kind

01:04:19.040 of two have two you know they're parallels the yin and yang and so claire is of everyone who is at

01:04:27.940 that in geneva that summer like she's the last one standing i think yeah yeah and for quite a long

01:04:36.200 time because for you know up until 1853 i think it is when mary dies it's just her and mary who's

01:04:44.200 who are left because Polidori has killed himself.

01:04:48.240 Byron has died, you know, fighting the Turks.

01:04:53.320 So he didn't actually do any fighting and Shelley has drowned.

01:04:56.580 So it's just the two of them.

01:04:58.160 And then after 1853, it's just clear she's the only one left

01:05:03.420 and she does live for quite a long time after that.

01:05:06.680 And I think her life in Florence is kind of presented

01:05:13.580 it if you read um the aspen papers by henry james which is a sort of novelization or in a novella of

01:05:20.680 her last moments or her her last days in florence it it looks very pitiful and it looks very kind of

01:05:28.680 she comes across as basically just living with ghosts she has ghosts all around her she has the

01:05:33.240 shrine to shelly and all the rest of it i i think i don't believe that either i mean henry i love

01:05:40.280 Henry James. He's one of my favourite writers, but he does have a man killing off Claire in the

01:05:46.160 Aspern papers. And I'm sorry, but no man killed Claire. She survived them all. And even her last

01:05:54.340 two letters are to the man I think she was involved with in Paris. So there was still

01:06:01.040 stuff going on. I mean, even in old age, she was still a formidable presence. And I don't think

01:06:08.620 she was just living with ghosts I think she was somebody who lived very much in the present as

01:06:13.780 well because I don't think you can live the kind of life that she lived and not have to deal with

01:06:19.780 the present constantly and I saw I think this is on your Instagram you had a picture of her

01:06:26.000 her memorial which is in Florence is that where yeah so can you describe where that is and what

01:06:33.560 what that is all it is i went this summer or last summer and she's she's buried in the cemetery and

01:06:42.900 tella which is just um in the hills above florence so you can just get a bus from the center florence

01:06:48.820 up there and it's this beautiful cemetery it's lovely arches and these lovely black and white

01:06:54.920 tiles on the ground and she had paid for and bought a big tombstone and an inscription and

01:07:01.420 all the rest of it and then in the 1920s I don't know for what reason it was but anyway a lot of

01:07:06.780 the the tombs of the graves were dug up and the bones of people there were mixed together just

01:07:13.760 shoved under the this this ground under one of the the stretches of the arches and tiled over

01:07:20.020 so that's what she has now she's just her bones are just mixed in with other people's and she has

01:07:25.660 a tile one tile saying her name and her her date of birth and it's you just think yeah that's what

01:07:33.700 happens to women when they don't toe the line no exactly so I forgot to tell you about this before

01:07:41.560 but you've listened to my podcast before so you know at the end of these sorts of discussions I

01:07:46.040 like to to score everybody in four different categories so I will go over the categories

01:07:51.140 with you and I'm really intrigued to see where Claire is going to land and then afterwards you

01:07:56.700 can see where does she compare to Mary Shelley so the first category is scandalousness so how

01:08:02.520 scandalous and I mean and this is very much like in the time and place where she lived how scandalous

01:08:08.420 was she seen as being and she lived a long time and she lived in various places but if we just

01:08:13.660 think overall or what was the highest peak of scandalousness I think this is going to be a high

01:08:18.460 number oh yeah I think I think it would be hard to be more scandalous and clear I would say nine 0.76

01:08:25.200 out of ten only because she didn't actually shoot a man with a gun I think if she'd done that that

01:08:30.640 would be that's the one thing she didn't actually do yeah yeah and maybe you know if they had gone

01:08:36.720 through with a kidnap attempt on Allegra it would have turned into that but we didn't get to that

01:08:40.740 shootout moment for her yeah yeah sadly I think in in every way just in general even just not

01:08:48.180 being a married woman i think was scandalous living on her own was scandalous but the fact

01:08:51.700 she had the child with byron that she was traveling in this thruple really yes yeah it totally is

01:09:00.120 isn't it it really is a thruple yeah okay so nine the next category is scheminess and so this is

01:09:06.420 both like literal schemes um but also just kind of how she got by her plans like did she come up

01:09:14.420 with plans does she actually so this is you know you kind of debunked the fact that her she had a

01:09:18.740 scheme to snare Byron that was not necessarily a scheme of hers but I think just in terms of

01:09:26.300 I think the fact that she was able to continue to find work to find employment like I think she

01:09:32.000 always had a plan if we define schemes in that way yes I think I think she she had that one focus

01:09:39.300 i think that one thing of always you know support yourself and that was her one sort of guiding

01:09:46.720 light so when there were i mean schemes plans fell by the wayside constantly and they were

01:09:51.660 constantly falling apart and all sorts of crazy things um and she i mean a good example for

01:09:58.540 example is when um she did inherit some money when shelly left her some money and and mary said

01:10:04.380 we should invest this in an opera box you get really good returns you buy an opera box you get

01:10:09.060 really you rent it out you get really good returns on it and then the last minute mary pulls out and

01:10:13.680 said no i don't think this is sensible at all actually i don't think we should do this and

01:10:17.180 claire goes no i really like this idea i'm going to keep going with it and she loses all her money

01:10:20.940 so i mean from a from a sort of practical point of view i think she was hopeless at plans and

01:10:27.420 schemes yeah but she had that inner strength i think she had that inner that core that was able

01:10:34.300 to just kind of plow on through no matter what so that might if we balance the two things out 0.98

01:10:39.640 that might be something like a five where like she was bad at schemes but she was good at kind

01:10:44.740 of yeah five or six five six let's say 5.5 okay okay the next one I'm really interested what

01:10:51.920 you'll think about this it's the significance and so this is where her significance I mean

01:10:58.980 she has been largely forgotten but what was her significance you know she met all these important

01:11:05.260 people she was part of this important family dynasty she did live this singular life but

01:11:12.240 overall like the fact that her grave is now a tile like she's not remembered for her significance

01:11:18.660 which doesn't mean she doesn't have any yeah I mean it is that thing because I mean her as I was

01:11:26.000 saying before her significance is the life that she led and the the written account that she has 0.97

01:11:31.400 left us in letters and diaries and we know because women largely didn't participate in public life

01:11:39.500 as much they these are private forms these are private art forms letters and diaries and so

01:11:44.740 they're not valued as much they're not considered as important they don't have the same status

01:11:49.640 so what is hugely valuable about her to us as a sort of literary record but also socially as

01:11:58.000 as a record of a woman who was you know managing on her own is hugely important I mean I don't

01:12:05.200 think it can possibly be underestimated but it's being suppressed and it's suppressed because

01:12:11.380 that's a story that even now still society doesn't really want to embrace and celebrate

01:12:18.400 not really so I don't know how to answer that question in terms of I think her I think her

01:12:24.440 significance for women is 10 out of 10 significance in terms of how a patriarchal society assesses

01:12:34.980 women and their achievements would be next to nothing but patriarchal society is wrong

01:12:41.320 I'm going to well I'll just let you know the next category I think could make up for any deficits in 0.99

01:12:47.820 this category if that affects our score because the next category is the sexism bonus how much

01:12:53.160 did the patriarchy and sexism hold her back so what if we say for significance what if we do

01:12:58.940 another like five because she is significant but she's not remembered as significant

01:13:04.520 yeah but then for sexism i feel like that's a 10 out of 10 like i think that she her legacy

01:13:11.600 is forgotten because of sexism her life was extra challenging well all those things like 0.99

01:13:18.040 she had to suppress the fact that she was the mother of Byron's child like because that could 0.59

01:13:24.000 get in the way for finding employment like so much of what she was doing was twice as hard

01:13:30.100 because she had to always be making up for it yes I think it's I think it's interesting the way that

01:13:35.380 society culture literature embraces mary it because mary's i think slightly safer she's a

01:13:43.780 kind of safer option she's she's a mother and she you know held up shelly's legacy and she worked 0.54

01:13:51.640 to that end but she's also she's kind of non-threatening in the way that claire is by

01:13:58.600 Claire's issuing of marriage just just refusing it so yeah I think it's I think she I think it's

01:14:06.160 good that she she gets 10 out of 10 for sexism and a lower score perhaps and significance because

01:14:13.360 she shouldn't be significant in a patriarchal judgment she should be less because patriarchy 0.76

01:14:23.660 cannot value someone like Claire it's not capable of valuing her because it it doesn't understand

01:14:31.900 her it only understands her to crush her well and like you were saying earlier on about how

01:14:37.280 the way that her relationship with Byron was portrayed in order for Byron fans to

01:14:43.700 understand how cruel he was to her they have to make it be her fault so that I think that ties 0.99

01:14:51.040 into that as well like we need to think of her as this just kind of bimbo who is just hanging out 0.92

01:14:57.220 there with all these brilliant people because if we see her as a person then we have to reckon with 0.99

01:15:02.280 Byron was terrible which Byron was terrible but apparently there's people who don't want to think

01:15:07.140 that yeah I mean I still see her being described as clueless a groupie even now I see that on

01:15:14.580 twitter um if you've ever watched ken russell's film gothic you'll see her being portrayed as 0.95

01:15:20.700 a sort of nymphomaniac crazy woman with who's barely capable of stringing two words together

01:15:28.200 it's really interesting how we have to kind of box these women in so quickly and she is in the 1.00

01:15:36.180 box marked you know crazy chick who's just you know we don't have to pay any attention to her 0.87

01:15:43.240 because she's just nuts but in a kind of sexy way so that's okay it's funny though too because the 0.99

01:15:48.560 like in your book again like you do mention a lot like claire herself because it's her point of view 0.93

01:15:52.720 you know seeing herself and as another half of mary and kind of how they are different from each

01:15:57.780 other but i think in a very facile way perhaps movie makers or other people say okay claire and

01:16:03.420 mary have to be very different from each other and if mary is the heroine then we need to make

01:16:08.040 Claire this like nymphomaniac groupie weirdo like there's other ways to make two people be

01:16:14.000 different than each other but that seems to be the fallback yeah and also there's always a stress on

01:16:20.100 how much they fell out and actually there was a lot of support on both sides even as they got older

01:16:26.120 um I mean yes they're I mean the the novel is really bookended by this terrible row

01:16:33.020 that that Claire and Mary have and it's the last time that that they ever see each other

01:16:37.660 um but they did support each other actually throughout their lives particularly after the

01:16:43.140 death of Shelly you know they they there was harmony there um sometimes there was sisterly

01:16:51.820 support but um but yes it's uh it is it's almost as though portraying them on the screen they have

01:17:01.860 to be reduced and I and I I get that that happens to to men too I mean Byron is always portrayed

01:17:08.560 on screen as just this sort of you know like handsome idiot really um and Shelley is is a bit 0.52

01:17:17.360 mad and eccentric but and obviously they're they're more than that but yeah I think particularly the 0.99

01:17:23.340 uh the sort of one-dimensional views of Claire are particularly harmful and and and it almost

01:17:29.380 feels political as though it is trying to give a message over to women of you don't you dare do

01:17:34.800 this because you know it'll all end up bad for you and yeah and i'm not no and she's she's living 0.79

01:17:43.400 proof that you know she survived them all and and she actually had a good life that's the that's the

01:17:48.420 thing in spite of the tragedy in spite of that early tragedy could have finished her and it

01:17:53.820 didn't i want to i need to tell you the the score that she landed on is 29.5 mary shelly 29

01:18:02.460 yay so at least in this scale claire claire wins this round yes i think it's the scandal i think

01:18:15.500 i think mary shelly was scandalous but i think claire was seen as because she never got married

01:18:21.940 you know Mary Shelley ran away unmarried as a teenager but then she was quite conventional for

01:18:27.340 the rest of her life really or she was seen to be yeah yeah she really was and and Claire really was

01:18:33.460 the the rebellious one I I've said this before and I wrote a blog piece about about Claire's

01:18:39.280 letters many many years ago and I said to me she is Mary Walsh and Craft's natural daughter more

01:18:45.680 so than than Mary Shelley was I think she's the real goth girl she is yeah Claire actually that's

01:18:53.360 such a good point and Mary Wollstonecraft also spent time in Paris traveling around it's yeah

01:18:58.400 yes absolutely so your book I want to tell the listeners as well that this um interview has been

01:19:07.040 a long time coming because I feel it was like six months ago or something I saw that there was a book

01:19:12.000 called Claremont. And I thought, part of me was like, Oh my gosh, maybe it's a book about Claire

01:19:16.200 Claremont. But the rest of me was like, No, it's no, of course, it's not going to be a book about

01:19:20.080 Claire Claremont. It's just and then I looked at him like, it is a book about Claire. And I messaged

01:19:25.340 you and I was just like, please come on my podcast. And I know your book isn't published for six or

01:19:30.280 nine months or however long ago this was. But it was so important to me to bring you on as someone

01:19:35.000 who can actually speak to this woman who's so fascinated me for so long. And I'm so happy that

01:19:40.720 she's the main character for once in your book well thank you so much for for asking me because

01:19:46.080 it's just I think the thing I want more than anything is I just want people to know about her

01:19:51.500 I just want people to know about her life and who she was and that she mattered and the whole thing

01:19:58.440 that she was so exercised about that you know this whole thing about you know my life will

01:20:04.740 pass an oblivion and my story will disappear she knew herself that she had an important story

01:20:12.200 she wasn't just an important counter i think to all the biographies that were coming out about

01:20:16.840 byron and the sort of things that they were saying about him but i think also she's she's a corrective

01:20:22.180 to the austin regency marriage conventional setup she is someone saying no it's perfectly possible

01:20:31.080 to have a very different kind of life and live it well I'm not saying that she she necessarily

01:20:37.480 consciously was was living in a certain way and and saying to women around her oh you know look

01:20:44.760 at me look at me but I think she I think she was aware that she was doing things differently and

01:20:51.260 that that was important and that it was important for that to be seen because she had nieces who

01:20:56.800 I think did look up to her Clary and Paula both interestingly you know Paula her niece has an

01:21:04.860 illegitimate daughter a little girl called um Georgette I think it is so yeah she she I think

01:21:11.140 she she was aware that she had um a strong story well and thank you so much your book Claremont

01:21:17.320 when this interview airs people should be able to to pick up a copy of that and I I strongly

01:21:23.300 encourage everybody to. Oh, thank you very much. And thank you so much for asking me because it's

01:21:27.800 just lovely to talk about Claire. Thank you for your lovely questions as well. Thank you so much.

01:21:34.240 Thank you.

01:21:44.280 So during the interview, you may have noticed the part in which Leslie referred to Claire as the

01:21:50.620 true I think she said the real goth queen or the true goth queen and that got me thinking about

01:21:56.120 the classic vulgar history design we have the Mary Shelley one it's designed by Karen Moynihan

01:22:00.940 friend of the podcast it says goth queen mom friend which is about Mary Shelley and I have

01:22:06.500 decided I couldn't not so anyway Karen again has fabulously taken her original design and kind of

01:22:12.560 defaced it she's kind of vandalized it to change it from goth queen mom friend to the real goth

01:22:18.600 queen superstar um and so it's a claire and it says on it also like claire was here so it's a

01:22:24.460 claire claremont merch design that you can now get at the various merch stores that we have for

01:22:30.080 vulgar history you can go to vulgarhistory.com slash store that's got the best shipping for

01:22:35.920 people in the u.s or if you're outside the u.s go to vulgarhistory.redbubble.com and both of these

01:22:41.960 have the claire claremont design or you could get the claire claremont and also the mary shelley

01:22:47.260 design. No one has to choose just one. You can stand both of them. I mean, they're both such

01:22:53.100 iconic people. It's just that Claire really has gone so underappreciated for so long for all the

01:22:59.340 reasons we talked about in this episode. And oh yeah, I wanted to let you know that I'm on

01:23:04.800 Substack. I've got a little newsletter thing. So every week I've been putting... It's like

01:23:10.020 written stuff. So I feel like where I'm most comfortable putting content in the world is

01:23:14.260 like talking, but also writing. That's where I really feel comfortable. That's where I kind of

01:23:19.400 started out from. And so I've been resharing some of the essays that I've written through the years

01:23:23.820 on my sub stack at the moment, based on the people who are following it already. I asked a poll,

01:23:29.120 like, what would you want to hear? Which sorts of essays do you want to see? And we're doing

01:23:31.920 the wives of Henry VIII, which is something I don't know if I'd ever do on the podcast,

01:23:35.740 but I did a lot of research about them back in the day. And so it's a series called Tudor.

01:23:40.200 I hardly knew her and um yeah we're just kind of going wife by wife through all the wives a lot of

01:23:46.240 them have more than one part because they're there's a lot to say about people like Catherine

01:23:50.220 of Aragon and Anne Boleyn for instance anyway so it's vulgarhistory.substack.com or if you're on

01:23:55.480 there you can you can follow along it's totally free um and it's just sort of like uh another

01:24:00.300 branch of the vulgar history tree I guess you can also support this podcast on patreon

01:24:05.500 at patreon.com slash and foster writer, where for $1 a month, you get early ad free access to all

01:24:11.700 the episodes, as well as ad free access to the episodes that have already been on. So just you

01:24:17.280 can hook that up with wherever you listen to your podcast, if it's on Spotify or Apple podcasts or

01:24:22.080 whatever, you can like get that feed on there. So you can just always listen to always ad free

01:24:25.780 episodes. If you pledge at least $5 or more a month, you get access to the bonus episodes of

01:24:30.680 vulgar peace theater most recently bill and head's excellent adventure is the movie that we talk

01:24:36.880 about the next one we're going to be doing is brotherhood of the wolf but we've also done other

01:24:41.120 movies before we've done like ned kelly the movie that's called literally ned kelly starring heath

01:24:46.220 ledger the woman king we did chevalier and also if you actually okay so if you pledge the five

01:24:53.540 dollars a month you get access to all those episodes as well which again you can listen to

01:24:56.740 in your like regular podcast listening app um you also get access to the discord which is the

01:25:02.080 vulgar history salon international where i hang out there a lot um and yeah it's just a place for

01:25:07.100 tits of brigade to like hang out and talk and share pictures of her cats and like i put some

01:25:10.900 spoilers about upcoming episodes and it's just it's just a group chat basically so to join that

01:25:15.580 discord you need to be at that five dollars or more a level and also yeah if you just want to

01:25:22.100 listen to the bill and ted's excellent adventure episode of vulgar peace theater for instance or

01:25:25.900 other specific of these Patreon-only episodes, I've started putting them for sale, basically.

01:25:30.860 So instead of subscribing for $5 a month, for $5, you can just buy that episode so you can

01:25:35.520 listen to it. So that's all available at patreon.com slash Anne Foster Writer.

01:25:44.280 So again, Leslie's book, Claremont, is now available in North America as well as in the UK.

01:25:50.220 There's a link in the show notes. You can order a copy from my bookshop.org page,

01:25:53.700 or you can get the e-book from anywhere where you get your e-books from.

01:25:56.720 Another great book to consider buying is Rebel of the Regency,

01:25:59.820 The Scandal Saga of Carolina Brunswick, Britain's Uncrowned Queen,

01:26:03.100 a new upcoming nonfiction book that I wrote.

01:26:06.040 That's about another lesser known woman of the Regency era.

01:26:10.260 I don't think there's any direct correlation between Claire Claremont and Carolina Brunswick,

01:26:15.000 but I do think they're both women just doing their best. 0.98

01:26:18.520 Shitty men were in their lives and they were just trying to make a name for themselves.

01:26:22.480 I both traveled a lot. I think there's parallels, definitely. You can get more information about my

01:26:27.080 book, Rebel of the Regency, at my website, rebeloftheregency.com. And you can put it on

01:26:32.280 your TBR list, on book, on Goodreads, and on Storygraph, and on all of the places.

01:26:38.060 And thank you so much for listening to Vulgar History. Next week, we're going to be talking

01:26:41.560 about another woman from this time period who lived her very own unconventional life. And that's

01:26:48.220 always worth celebrating. So until next time, keep your pants on and your tits out. 1.00

01:26:54.680 Vulgar History is researched, scripted, and hosted by Anne Foster. Editor is Christina 0.99

01:26:59.400 Lumagi. Theme music is by The Severn Duo. Regency-era artwork by Karen Moynihan. Social

01:27:05.140 media videos by Magdalena Denson. Transcripts of this podcast are available at vulgarhistory.com

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01:27:15.580 member of our patreon at patreon.com slash ann foster writer vulgar history merchandise is

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Vulgar History - December 10, 2025

Mary Shelley's Scandalous Sister, Claire Clairmont (Revisited)

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Transcript