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me
pounds her fists
in anger about this,
but the wiser, patient Mary
just keeps writing
without a name.

UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE
    HarperCollins Publishers
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    BYRON’S REQUEST
    Autumn 1817
Byron demands that we send
him his daughter.
He does not quite grasp
that shuttling a nine-month-old
off to Italy with strangers
might not be the greatest plan.
Still I will be glad to be done
with the scandal that has been caused
by having little Allegra around.
Claire will no doubt
act more sullen and complaint heavy
than she already behaves
without her little one.
But she should have known
when she became involved
with Byron
that there would be
a Faustian cost,
that she would barter away
part of her soul.

UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE
    HarperCollins Publishers
    .....................................................................
    THE RELEASE OF FRANKENSTEIN
    January 1818
Even though only five hundred copies
are published, some note
is taken of my book.
My friends shower me with praise
for my imagination and bold ideas.
The outside world
of course does not know
who authored Frankenstein ,
only that the preface
seems masculine
and that the book is dedicated
to William Godwin,
my father.
If I receive no admiration
beyond that of my father
it would be more than enough.
He wrote that Frankenstein
is “the most wonderful work
to have been written
at twenty years of age
that [he] has ever heard of.”
The reviews I am told
are happily mixed.
I do not read them
as we are preparing
to leave for Italy
to transport Allegra to Byron.
And honestly I can weather
no negativity at the moment.
We find someone
to take on the twenty-one-year lease
we made for Albion House.
I feel torn about leaving.
The weather chills the bones
and Shelley has been very sick here,
now with an eye infection
that makes it impossible
for him to read. However,
we took up residency here
and it was refreshing
to have a permanent address
in the country. I finished
my book in this house.
My daughter was born here.
It feels bittersweet to leave.

UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE
    HarperCollins Publishers
    .....................................................................
    RUMORS AND TRUTH
    February–March 1818
I permanently board up Albion House
and join Claire, Shelley,
and the children in London.
I detest our current lodgings
but we could find nothing else.
We cannot stay at Skinner Street
as there is once again
turmoil over finances
like angry bulls huffing in a pen.
Shelley took out another
post obit loan, promising
forty-five hundred pounds
on his father’s death
for the receipt of two thousand now.
My father expected to receive
a good portion of that money.
I try not to mire myself
in money issues as I find it
a cemetery for creativity,
but I am not sure
how Father will get along
without Shelley’s help.
We can always just borrow more.
We delve into culture
and entertainment,
spend many nights with the Hunts.
We see the Elgin Marbles,
an exhibition of Salvador Rosa,
and the Appollonicon, an organ that sounds
like an orchestra. A large scenic view of Rome
makes us hunger for our trip abroad.
But rumors cast a pall
over our last days
in England. Word reaches
Stepmother and Father
that Allegra is Claire’s child,
and that Shelley is the father.
We explain that Lord Byron
is in fact the father of Allegra
and that we are taking
Allegra to him.
Stepmother yells,
“Claire’s downfall is all
the result of her following
you into hell, Mary,”
as if I had anything
to do with Claire courting Byron.
But Stepmother
must point blaming fingers
at me as she did when
I was a child in her house.

UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE
    HarperCollins Publishers
    .....................................................................
    HEAVEN OR HELL
    March 1818
If there were but one
way to construct a life
perhaps the road
would be easier
for having no choice
of left or right,
but as free