Farewell to Shelley's Ghost at the Bodleian

Alison Prince, Web Manager

The last day of the Shelley's Ghost exhibition at the Bodleian was 27 March 2011. Sadly, it has now been taken down but only to make way for the next exciting installment, Manifold Greatness: Oxford and the Making of the King James Bible, which opens on 22 April. It will live on, however, through the Shelley's Ghost exhibition website, which will be staying live and continuing to make the objects available in a virtual sense to interested audiences around the world. A version of the exhibition will also be showing at The New York Public Library in 2012.

Throughout the whole process of planning and showing the exhibition, the Communications team worked tirelessly behind the scenes to get the message out about Shelley's Ghost and the fascinating stories and objects it was showcasing. I think we should also thank Danny Boyle for showing his Frankenstein at the opportune moment when his audiences were able to come and see the real thing here!

By way of farewell, I thought it would be nice to share some of our amazing media coverage from the exhibition. Here are few examples of the great things that were written:

LA Times - 25 March 2011
Paul Edmonson's blog post - 21 March 2011
The One Show - 18 February 2011
Times Higher Education - 17 February 2011
BBC Arts blog - 15 February 2011
BBC News - 15 February 2011
Culture 24 -3 December 2010
Mail Online - 30 November 2010

Bicentenary of Shelley's expulsion from Oxford

On 25 March 1811, Percy Bysshe Shelley and his friend Thomas Jefferson Hogg were publicly expelled from University College, Oxford. On the following morning, after breakfast, they took their places on the outside of a London-bound coach. After only two terms as a first-year undergraduate, Shelley had been sent down.

Their offence was 'contumaciously refusing to answer questions ... and also repeatedly declining to disavow a publication entitled The Necessity of Atheism.' This was the anonymous pamphlet which Shelley had privately printed a few weeks earlier and put on sale at sixpence a copy in a shop-window on Oxford High Street. A passing don spotted the pamphlet and immediately ordered the stock to be burnt. Shelley had also sent copies out to individuals - 'every bishop in the kingdom', head of Oxford Colleges, and other dignitaries - with letters under false names, inviting their response.

The reception from recipients was not rapturous. 'A sixth enormous lie', reported one of Shelley's targets, 'consisted in his saying [under the alias of Charles Meyton], that he had himself visited Palestine ... and that neither angels nor martyrs should ever convince him, contrary to the evidence of his senses, that it had ever been a fertile land.' The pamphlet, shockingly, contradicted the Anglican Church's 39 Articles ('There is but one living and true God ...'), which Shelley and Hogg had signed only a few months earlier in the University's matriculation register, on becoming members of the University.

On the 200th anniversary of the expulsion, visitors to the Shelley's Ghost website can see many fascinating items relating to Shelley's time at Oxford and to his subsequent career as poet and unacknowledged world-legislator. The final page of The Necessity of Atheism is shown with its provocative 'Q.E.D.', concluding the proof of God's non-existence. With a letter identified only in 2008, Shelley sends a copy to William Godwin, his future father-in-law, under the alias Jennyngs Stukeley. Another of his Oxford letters discusses 'the Spirit of Love, the harmonised intelligence of infinite Creation' - not to be confused with God. The draft manuscript of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein is also on show, with echoes of Shelley's anarchic behaviour at Oxford - chemical experiments, wrong-coloured pantaloons.

Image credit: Bodleian Library, University of Oxford

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Shelley's Ghost is also open to visit at the Bodleian Library for just two more days until 5pm on Sunday 27 March 2011.

New additions to the Shelley's Ghost website

Alison Prince, Web Manager

Since Shelley's Ghost launched in early December 2010, we've continued to work in the background at adding the few extras that felt would be really valuable to the website.

I'm very pleased to say that we have now launched our comment facility, so visitors to the website can record their thoughts and comments on each of the exhibits (or their experience of the website more generally) on a dedicated comments tab. We are very much hoping that people will be keen to exploit this. Here is an example of one that has been left already.

We have also added an exhibition timeline. Presented as a slideshow, this interactive gives an overview of the chronology of the exhibition and helps to provide valuable context for visitors. The various exhibition themes are linked to the relevant part of the timeline for quick reference. You can see the timeline here.

Enjoy. More later.

Shelley's Ghost video competition

Alison Prince, Web Manager

Shelley’s Ghost tells the story of how the descendents of one of our greatest literary families worked hard to shape their posthumous reputations and widen appreciation of their work. Why do the works of Percy Bysshe Shelley, Mary Shelley, William Godwin and Mary Wollstonecraft still appeal to us today? We are running this video competition to find out.

To enter, simply make a short video of yourself performing a text by one of our four featured authors and, importantly, tell us why you chose the author or the work that you did. Choose your own text or here are some suggestions.

Our favourite video will win a copy of the exhibition book, Shelley’s Ghost: Reshaping the Image of a Literary Family, signed by the authors Stephen Hebron and Elizabeth C. Denlinger.

See entries so far and find out more about the competition here.

Exhibition opening event with Andrew Motion

Alison Prince, Bodleian Libraries Web Manager

On Thursday evening last week (2 December) we had the opening event for the Shelley's Ghost exhibition. As usual the invitations created by Bodleian Library Publishing were gorgeous and, apart from a few unfortunate people caught in the snow down south, everyone arrived at 17:30 to a beautifully lit Divinity School.

It was great to see so many people there who had contributed to the exhibition in so many ways and it felt like a good culmination to the whole project. Bodley's Librarian, Sarah Thomas, spoke first, followed by the University Vice-chancellor, Prof. Andrew Hamilton. We were then treated to a short speech from Andrew Motion who recalled his own time at University College, Oxford (Shelley's college) in the room next to the Shelley Memorial. He had some amusing tales of complete strangers / Shelley 'enthusiasts' knocking on his door and inviting themselves in on the assumption that it must have been the room Shelley occupied!

After the talks, the exhibition room itself was opened and all the guests got to go in for a sneak preview before the public opening the following day. I spent quite a lot of time staring at the computers in the corner of the room to make sure people weren't having any trouble using the sites but did manage to tear my eyes away and spend some time looking at the exhibits too. Being surrounded by a combination literary masterpieces and very human (often incredibly moving) objects was a very special experience. It was such a treat to see everything come together on the night in this way too. Here's to the success of Shelley's Ghost!

Taking Shelley's Ghost into the classroom

Alison Prince, Bodleian Libraries Web Manager

Although the Shelley's Ghost exhibition website was primarily targeted at interested adults, we recognised early on that the material we were showing had some links to the National Curriculum and could also work for a range of curriculum enrichment activities. We started to think about how we could demonstrate the possible uses of the website in the classroom and, in this way, extend access to the materials and the outreach impact of this project even further.

We met with a few colleagues from different departments around the University in order to assess our options. Given the tight timescale we were working to and the fact that the website was primarily aimed at an older audience, we decided that the best course of action would be to create "suggested activity" sheets for teachers to demonstrate how the material might be introduced to their students, and also show the syllabus links.

We were very lucky to make contact with Cressida Ryan, the Classics Outreach Officer for the University of Oxford. Cressida had valuable experience of working with young people and an understanding of how to demonstrate the value and relevance of an idea or activity to schools. If that wasn't enough, she also had a whole heap of knowledge on the themes and the people showcased in our exhibition.

In what seemed like an impossibly short time, we had a pack of sheets put together based on individual objects in the exhibition or more general themes. My personal favourites include "It's all Greek to Shelley!", "A Vindication of the Vindication" and "Editing Frankenstein". I'm actually tempted to have a go myself...

Shelley's Ghost - the chocolate

Shelley chocolate, you ask? What could that be?


The Shelley's Ghost exhibition is accompanied by a full range of merchandise, including - you guessed it - chocolate. Shelley liked a bit of dessert as much as the next person, and he wrote to Maria Gisborne in 1820:

'...We'll have tea and toast;
Custards for supper, and an endless host
Of syllabubs and jellies and mice-pies,
And other such ladylike luxuries.'

The Shelley chocolate bars are produced by Farrah's of Harrogate for the Bodleian exhibition.

Chocolate isn't the only choice, however; we are also offering 'Liberty and Free Election' and Frankenstein merchandise, ranging from cufflinks to bags. All items are available through the Bodleian Shop.

If you're interested in learning more about Shelley and the exhibition itself, the book Shelley's Ghost: Reshaping the Image of a Literary Family is available for purchase on the exhibition website. Written by Stephen Hebron and Elizabeth C. Denlinger, the book explores the lives and reputations of Percy Bysshe Shelley, his wife Mary Shelley, and Mary's parents, William Godwin and Mary Wollstonecraft. Mary Shelley, haunted by the past, directly sought to enhance the public's appreciation of her husband and parents by the selective publication of relevant manuscripts; she passed along her legacy to her son and his wife. As guardian of the archive until giving part of it to the Bodleian in 1893-4, Lady Shelley too helped shape the posthumous reputations of these important writers.

The book uses the Bodleian's collections - from manuscripts to cherished objects - to illustrate the Shelley family history. In a final chapter, Elizabeth C. Denlinger of the New York Public Library looks at the material that the family was unable to control.