“... At the time I am speaking of, Mrs. Shelley was twenty-four. Such a rare pedigree of genius was enough to interest me in her, irrespective of her own merits as an authoress. The most striking feature in her face was her calm gray eyes; she was rather under the English standard of woman’s height, very fair and light-haired, witty, social, and animated in the society of friends, though mournful in solitude.”—1821.

“Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin Shelley, with her well-shaped, golden-haired head, almost always a little bent and drooping; her marble-white shoulders and arms statuesquely visible in the perfectly plain black velvet dress, which the customs of that time allowed to be cut low, and which her own taste adopted; ... her thoughtful, earnest eyes; her short upper lip and intellectually curved mouth, with a certain close compressed and decisive expression while she listened, and a relaxation into fuller redness and mobility when speaking; her exquisitely formed, white, dimpled, small hands, with rosy palms, and plumply commencing fingers, that tapered into tips as slender and delicate as those in a Vandyck portrait,—all remain palpably present to memory.”—About 1824.

“Shelley’s second love, who was five years his junior, is described as ‘rather short, remarkably fair, and light-haired with brownish gray eyes, a great forehead, striking features, and a noticeable air of sedateness.’ One writer has compared her with the classic bust of Clytie.”