Edward John Trelawny

Biographer

• Born: November 13, 1792
• Birthplace: London or Cornwall, England
• Died: August 13, 1881
• Place of death: Sompting, Sussex, England

Biography

English romantic author and adventurer Edward John Trelawny is perhaps best known as the friend of Percy Bysshe Shelley and Lord Byron, whom he vividly described in his writings for the benefit of adoring Victorian fans years after their death. Born in 1792 in either London or Cornwall, Trelawny went to school in Bristol, but ran away at the age of thirteen and joined the Royal Navy at the insistence of his father, who wanted to curb potential delinquency. After a rather miserable time in the navy and an honorable discharge in 1812 as a midshipman, he married Caroline Addison in 1813 and had a daughter in 1814, but he discovered his wife in an affair and divorced her, messily, in 1819.

After his divorce, Trelawny attempted to reconstruct his life, rejecting all of his past experiences and becoming interested in literature. He eventually met Shelley and Byron through a mutual friend early in 1822 in Pisa, Italy. His efforts at recreating himself had been successful and he was seen as the embodiment of the Romantic hero. Trelawny had been involved in designing the boat Shelley was in when he drowned later that year. Trelawny was greatly affected by the death, both because of his deep admiration for Shelley and because of the role his design flaws may have played in the unseaworthiness of the Don Juan. Trelawny took responsibility for the funeral arrangements and raised money to help Mary Shelley return to England.

In 1823, he joined Byron in the fight for Greek independence, marrying the daughter of a Greek revolutionary and having another child, a daughter named Zella, although the marriage ended before he even left Greece. Trelawny’s book Recollections of the Last Days of Shelley and Byron (1858) recounts the stories from this time in his life and paints some of the most detailed personal portraits of these significant literary figures available. For two years beginning in 1833, Trelawny explored the United States, swimming part of the Niagara River and becoming involved in abolition, at one point buying a slave’s freedom in order to show his support for the cause.

Trelawny’s popularity has not extended past his death, but he was immensely popular during his lifetime, both for his charm and for his exuberant storytelling. His Adventures of a Younger Son, published in 1831 and presented as an autobiography, is considered one of the great marketing hoaxes of the Romantic period. Drawing on his time in the navy as a young man and on his experiences in the brigade of Odysseus Androutsos during the Greek war, Trelawny fabricated an adventurous tale of deserting the navy and joining up with a privateer. The character Trelawny created was a partial inspiration for Squire Trelawny in Robert Louis Stevenson’s Treasure Island. Trelawny seems to have convinced everyone but Lord Byron himself, who objected to reviewer’s claims that Trelawny was likely the model for the Byronic heroes in The Giaour (1813), The Corsair (1814), and Lara (1814) on the grounds that he had not met Trelawny until after these were written. Trelawny’s Byronic fantasy, in retrospect, was influenced by his acquaintance with Byron rather than the other way around, although Trelawny’s lavish tales and self-recreation likely did influence Byron’s 1823 work The Island.

Trelawny died in Sompting, Sussex, in 1881 and his ashes were buried next to Shelley’s in the Protestant Cemetery in Rome.