Edward John Trelawny

Edward John Trelawny (13 November 1792 – 13 August 1881) was a biographer, novelist and adventurer who is best known for his friendship with the Romantic poets Percy Bysshe Shelley and Lord Byron.

Trelawny was born in England to a family of modest income but extensive ancestral history.

Though his father becomes wealthy while he is a child, Edward has an antagonistic relationship with him.

After an unhappy childhood, he is sent away to a school.

He is assigned as a volunteer in the Royal Navy shortly before he turns thirteen.

Trelawny serves on multiple ships as a naval volunteer while in his teen years.

He travels to India and sees combat during engagements with the French Navy.

He does not care for the naval lifestyle, however, and leaves at nineteen years of age without becoming a commissioned officer.

After retiring from the Navy he has a brief and unhappy marriage in England.

He then moves to Switzerland and later Italy where he meets Shelley and Byron.

He becomes friends with the two poets, and helps teach them about sailing.

He soon constructs elaborate stories about his time in the navy, and claims to have deserted and become a pirate in India.

After Shelley's death, Trelawny identifies his body and arranges the funeral and burial.

Trelawny then travels to Greece with Lord Byron in order to fight in the Greek War of Independence.

Byron and Trelawny split up near Greece and Trelawny travels into Greece to act as the agent of Lord Byron.

After Byron dies, Trelawny oversees the preparations for funeral and the return of his body to England.

He also writes his obituaries.

Trelawny joins the cause of the Greek Warlord Odysseas Androutsos and helps to provide him with additional arms.

He also marries Odysseas' sister Teritza.

After Odysseas falls out of favor with the Greek government and is arrested, Trelawny takes control of his mountain fortress.

During this time, Trelawny survives an assassination attempt.

After leaving Greece, he divorces Teritza and returns to England, where he is well received by members of London Society.

He then writes a memoir titled Adventures of a Younger Son.

After the book is published, he travels to America for two years before returning to England.

He then becomes politically active but soon remarries and moves to the English countryside.

He then lives the life of a country squire for twelve years and raises a family with his third wife.

They eventually separate and he moves back to London with a mistress.

He then writes a well received book about Shelley and Byron.

He soon becomes friends with several prominent artists and writers in London.

He is able to share his firsthand experience with Romantic Era writers with the leading Victorian writers of the day.

He later retires to Sompting where he leads an ascetic lifestyle.

He died in Sompting at the age of 88, having outlived almost all of his friends from the Romantic era.