Clairmont, Claire (1798–1879)
Clairmont, Claire (1798–1879)
Mistress of Lord Byron. Born Clara Mary Jane Clairmont, 1798; died 1879; dau. of Mary Jane Vial and an unknown father; stepdau. of William Godwin; stepsister of Mary Shelley (1797–1851); children: (with Lord Byron) daughter Allegra (1817–1822).
At 18, was briefly Lord Byron's mistress in Switzerland (1816) and gave birth to their daughter Allegra (1817); though Byron refused to see her, relentlessly continued her pursuit, and fought with him as to who would bring up the child (Byron won out and installed Allegra in a convent in Italy, where she caught typhus and died); except for a 4-year sojourn as a governess in Russia, lived with Mary Shelley throughout the rest of her life; was celebrated in Percy Shelley's poem "To Constantia Singing."
See also Marion Kingston Stocking, ed., The Clairmont Correspondence: Letters of Claire Clairmont, Charles Clairmont, and Fanny Imlay Godwin, Vol. I, 1808–1834, Vol. II, 1835–1879 (Johns Hopkins U. Press, 1996); and Women in World History.