page_title: Claire Clairmont
section_title: Death of Allegra
hierarchical_section_title: Claire Clairmont / Death of Allegra
caption_attribution_description: English: Allegra Byron, daughter of George Gordon, Lord Byron
context_page_description: Clara Mary Jane Clairmont, or Claire Clairmont as she was commonly known, was the stepsister of writer Mary Shelley and the mother of Lord Byron's daughter Allegra. She is thought to be the subject of a poem by Percy Bysshe Shelley.
context_section_description: Clairmont was granted only a few brief visits with her daughter after surrendering her to Byron. When Byron arranged to place her in a Capuchin convent in Bagnacavallo, Italy, Clairmont was outraged. In 1821, she wrote Byron a letter accusing him of breaking his promise that their daughter would never be apart from one of her parents. She felt that the physical conditions in convents were unhealthy and the education provided was poor and was responsible for "the state of ignorance & profligacy of Italian women, all pupils of Convents. They are bad wives & most unnatural mothers, licentious & ignorant they are the dishonour & unhappiness of society.... This step will procure to you an innumerable addition of enemies & of blame."
  By March 1822, it had been two years since she had seen her daughter. She plotted to kidnap Allegra from the convent and asked Shelley to forge a letter of permission from Byron. Shelley refused her request. Byron's seemingly callous treatment of the child was further vilified when Allegra died there at age five from a fever some scholars identify as typhus and others speculate was a malarial-type fever. Clairmont held Byron entirely responsible for the loss of their daughter and hated him for the rest of her life. Shelley's death followed only two months later.
caption: Clara Allegra Byron, about 1822
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