Content: Thin pieces of skull, browned with age. With a manuscript attestation (S'ANA 0269a-b) in the hand of Augustus M. Moore, a younger brother of the writer George Moore. The text is also copied on an envelope that once contained it (S'ANA 0269b); (S'ANA 0269a) reads in full, "A piece of Shelley's scull / given me by Miss / Taylor, E. J. Trelawny's / niece, at 7 Pelham / Crescent, London on / August 9th 1879 & given / by me to my friend / Wilfrid Meynell on August / 11th 1879 as the greatest / token of our friendship. / Augustus M. Moore / 28 Clarge's St / London."
Biographical/historical: In his Recollections of the last days of Shelley and Byron (1858), E. J. Trelawny explains that during the disinterment of Shelley's body near Viareggio, the "iron [of the mattock] had struck a skull ...." He claims that Lord Byron desired Shelley's skull for himself, but Trelawny, recalling that Byron had once used a skull as a drinking-cup, "was determined Shelley's should not be so profaned." During the cremation, Trelawny reports that Shelley's corpse fell over, and the "frontal bone of the skull, where it had been struck with the mattock, fell off ..."
Ownership: Edward John Trelawny (1822); Emma Taylor; Augustus M. Moore (9 Aug 1879); Wilfred Meynell (11 Aug 1879); Quaritch London Meynell-Sowerby Sale (Sotheby's 26-27 Oct 1959, part of lot 314).
Acquisition: Quaritch London Meynell-Sowerby Sale (Sotheby's 26-27 Oct 1959, part of lot 314)
Exhibitions: NYPL Exhibition ID ML 18.X4033: Digitized in relation to the exhibition "It’s Alive! Frankenstein at 200," but not an exhibited item. The exhibition was a collaboration between The Morgan Library & Museum and The New York Public Library: https://www.themorgan.org/exhibitions/frankenstein
