*3.5 Stars*

This comic book follows Percy Shelley, best known for being the husband of Mary Shelley. I honestly don't know how close this is to what really happened. I do know that this portrays him as an entitled brat.
It was interesting though and I liked the drawings but I had trouble connecting with anyone and it felt very rushed. I wished it had been longer, I could have tried to like someone, anyone. Honestly, the only person I felt any kind of emotion towards so far, was his first wife. The poor child.
Anyway, I'm not sure what to add, so I'll stop there.

‘Come, let’s live our lives like a story!’ - from ‘Shelley’

Thank you to Europe Comics for making available via NetGalley ‘Shelley - Volume 1 - Percy Shelley’. The text is by Vandermeulen and the artwork by Daniel Casanave. It is translated to English by James Hogan.

This is an account of the early life of Percy Bysshe Shelley focussing on his relationships and radical ideas. It opens in 1811 when he is sent down from Oxford (a polite way to say expelled) after publishing an essay on atheism. Unrepentant he is disowned by his father and seeks out his sisters. There he meets Harriet Westbrook. After eloping to Scotland the young couple live humbly while Percy writes poetry. He is shown working on ‘Queen Mab’.

However, he soon becomes bored with Harriet and leaves her. Visiting the home of the philosopher William Godwin he meets Godwin’s three daughters. The volume concludes with his running away with Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin accompanied by her step-sister, Claire Clairmont.

The artwork is very striking and while the dialogue sometimes seemed a bit modern for the period depicted, I felt it was not really an issue as this work is intended to introduce readers to Shelley’s life and work in an accessible fashion. I felt it succeeded.

I found it delightful and while I was familiar with some aspects of his life and aware of how complicated it was, this felt a good introduction using the format of comic/graphic novel. I would hope that librarians would see the potential in it for gaining the attention of young readers, who might consider 19th Century poets a bit boring. The Romantics clearly had controversial lives.

I certainly will be interested to see the second volume in this series, which focuses on Mary Shelley, made available in English.

Shelley, a new graphic novel from Europe Comics, details the early days of the famed poet and his scandalous life. We see Shelley as a teenager and young man constantly on the move, never happy in one place. He was ahead of his time in religious views, vegetarianism, and politics, among other things.

He was a brilliant poet and thinker, never afraid to push back against societal norms to advance discussion through intelligent essays and debate. His work, like his personal life, was a scandal from the beginning, and that’s what we see in the story presented in the graphic novel. While he was brilliant as a writer and poet, he was a mess in the realm of love. We see his brief courtship and elopement with his first wife, his subsequent abandonment of her and his new dalliance with Mary Shelley, which would result in his second marriage. The novel focuses mostly on his relationships, with his writing is relegated to the background. This is in keeping with public opinion at the time, which largely ignored his poetry until after his death. It was an interesting and scandalous story, and surprisingly all true.

The art is done in an interesting comic book style, with exaggerated features and special attention to scenery details. It’s a great stylistic choice for the story being told.

Overall, Shelley is an interesting insight into the early life of one of Romanticism’s most esteemed poets. Learning more about his early days sheds light on the work he ferociously created and his rush to live every day fully.

Review will be published on 2/13/19: https://reviewsandrobots.com/2019/02/13/shelley-book-review

I didn't know much about Percy Shelley, sort of the fact that he was married to Mary. This quick-paced graphic novel has great illustrations, balancing a hand-drawn look with a computer colored feel, and relates the story of the poet. I will say, if you like me, are not a Romantic-era enthusiast, you can still enjoy this book. It is basically a historical romance with a happy ending.

3.5

Thanks to NetGalley for the free ARC in exchange for a truthful review.

My thanks to NetGalley and Europe Comics for a review copy of this one.

This graphic novel tells the story of Percy Bysshe Shelley. Opening in Oxford in 1811, when he gets expelled for his essay on Atheism (he was always in trouble there, pretty much), to his meeting with his first wife Harriet, and then his meeting and elopement with Mary Shelley, which is where this volume stops. The book does stay true to his story, more or less but tells it in a humorous way. The art too, is on the lines of caricature.
This was a cute way of getting to know about Shelley. I knew a little about him but not very much—that he was married to Harriet and then eloped with Mary, that he contributed to Frankenstein, that he died at a young age—but not much more. Also I’ve only read a few of his poems, but have a couple of his essays--on atheism, and in defence of poetry—on my TBR. The book touches upon these other writings I feel more than his poetry. We see him writing Queen Mab, of course, also a couple of other poems, but this volume mentions his essay “The Necessity of Atheism”, his adoption of vegetarianism, even the Declaration of Rights that he wrote. This also mentions Shelley sending out his declaration of rights in corked bottles in the sea (which is another thing I’d read about somewhere or other). Even though as a graphic novel, this doesn’t go into details of his works (there are quotes from his poetry, and letters etc on some of the pages aside from the main story), we can see him as someone who challenged popular views, and who certainly didn’t live his life conforming to the social norms of the day. But living his life on his own terms meant on the negative side that he didn’t seem to really think of who he would be hurting by his actions (like Harriet when his affection for her waned). His father and sisters, even his father-in-law disapprove as a consequence, and only his somewhat eccentric uncle (who came across as pretty likeable) seems to support him, even intercede with his father on his behalf when he runs out of money.

While the book gives one a bare glimpse into what must have been a rich, and certainly a very unusual life, it does so in a really enjoyable way. I hope there’s a second volume which picks up from where this left off. Though the numbering on NetGalley seems to suggest that the second might probably be from a different viewpoint, may be Mary Shelley? (Just checked the original French versions on goodreads, and it turns out this is right).

This told the story of the life of poet Percy Shelley. I was immediately interested because it was a comic and I loved the artwork. There were times where it seemed to drag but overall I enjoyed the story and loved the humor. How this one ended definitely made me want to pick up the next one!

I was given a copy of this work in exchange for an honest review.

I really enjoyed this brief glimpse into the life of Percy Shelley. I asked for a copy because I've always been interested in the Romantics. Less so for their works and more for the crazy lives they led. Percy isn't a good person but he is very interesting. I really enjoyed watching his life from post Oxford through his flight to the Continent. I liked the art style. I read this super fast. I feel like the goal for an autobiographical graphic novel is to wet the interest of the reader enough to do further research and the novel definitely accomplishes that. I can't wait to see where the next one goes.

This was such an interesting read for me. I never really thought about who Mary Shelley husband was so I didn’t really know anything about him but having his life story so compacted and simplified made it a lot more enjoyable to digest. The art was pretty good. It’s nice to learn something new.

This comic tells the life of Percy Shelley from his expulsion from college until his escape with Mary. I enjoyed reading about how he met and then married Harriet, his first wife. The illustrations were well done and I'm looking forward to reading the second volume.