Frankenstein author Mary Shelley kept a profoundly dark personal memento locked inside her writing desk. What was it?

The keepsake left by Percy Shelley’s death

Mary Shelley kept what was believed to be the heart of her husband, poet Percy Bysshe Shelley, in her writing desk. He drowned off the Italian coast in 1822, aged 29. Under the rules of the time, his body was cremated on the beach; accounts say the heart survived the fire and was recovered from the ashes.

The story is often told as a single dramatic moment, but the precise handling of the remains is not entirely clear. The lasting detail is that Mary kept the object as a private relic, reportedly wrapped in silk and stored among her papers.

A private memorial, not a public display

In an era when death was a constant presence and keepsakes of the dead were familiar, a lock of hair or a piece of clothing could preserve someone’s presence. Mary’s memento was far more intimate. Its place in her desk suggests something kept close but out of public view—not an exhibit, but a link to a husband whose life had ended abruptly.

That contrast gives the story its force: Mary Shelley, known to readers through Frankenstein, kept a physical remnant of Percy Shelley tucked among the tools of her own writing. The desk became both a working space and a private memorial.