Percy Bysshe Shelley was a major English Romantic poet. He was born in England to a Member of Parliament. Shelley had two marriages that ended in tragedy - his first wife Harriet drowned herself after he eloped with Mary Godwin, and Shelley himself drowned at age 30 when his ship sank in a storm in Italy. Shelley was part of a circle of visionary poets that included Lord Byron and John Keats, and was a key influence on English literature in the Romantic era.