rank, descent, and noble blood
Mary Shelley had herself to have been highly conscious of these
attributes. Byron, even if he
inherited his title almost by accident, was a member of the House of Lords
and was always addressed as Lord Byron by the Shelleys. Percy Bysshe Shelley, although somewhat
down the hierarchical list of aristocracy, was the elder son of a baronet and
would therefore have expected to inherit the title of his father, Sir Timothy Shelley. His family
had an illustrious "descent," with Sir
Philip Sidney being among his ancestors. On the other side, however,
neither William Godwin nor Mary
Wollstonecraft had any pretensions to lineage, and as middle-class
radicals they were committed to a classless society without false
hierarchies.
