CUMBRIA.- Shelley’s Ghost: Reshaping the Image of a Literary Family, a special exhibition at the Wordsworth Museum, is on view from July 7th through October 30th, 2011. Percy Bysshe Shelley was famous for his poetry and revolutionary political thought, but infamous for his convoluted private life and his relationships with women. Disowned by his Father, Shelley had a lifelong struggle with authority. His political ideas were extreme for the time and his ideas on social convention would border on the radical even today. He campaigned for social equality and democratic reform while pursuing his inheritance as the son of a landed gentleman. He abhorred the institution of marriage and endorsed free love, although he was married twice. At the age of 19, Shelley eloped with the 16 year-old daughter of a family friend. They were joined by her sister and later, by a schoolmistress from Sussex. This ménage lived a nomadic ex