SOURCE: Introduction to Adventures of a Younger Son, by Edward John Trelawny, T. Fisher Unwin, 1890, pp. 7-25.

In the essay that follows, Garnett provides a biographical sketch of Trelawny, and contends that he “quickly caught and reflected the spirit of his age” by cultivating a romantic role for himself.

I.

The sources for a memoir of Trelawny are few. That the following sketch of his life and character—slight as it is—is the fullest yet published is due to the publication last year of a number of his letters in Mrs. Julian Marshall's Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley: Her Life and Letters. Other material is The Adventures of a Younger Son, the Recollections of Shelley and Byron, Obituaries, a pamphlet or two, reviews and anecdotes, and a few allusions to him by his contemporaries. For some particulars and anecdotes of his latter years, the writer desires to thank Miss...