Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792-1822), English poet. As reckless and brilliant in his poetry as in his life, Shelley poured out the great body of his major work in less than a decade, and drowned off the coast of Tuscany at the age of 29. He is remembered as a love poet (“Lines Written in the Bay of Lerici”), a master of plangent lyrics (“To a Skylark”), of superb odes (“To the West Wind”) and moving elegies (“Adonais”). But he was also a philosophical and political essayist, and a gifted translator from German, Italian, Greek, Spanish and Arabic.