Saving the Clairmont Family Tomb

ABSTRACT Charles Clairmont (1795–1850), the stepbrother of Mary Shelley and the brother of Claire Clairmont, lived in Vienna, Austria, with his family. He taught English to the brothers of Kaiser Franz Joseph I, namely Ferdinand Maximilian (who would be crowned Emperor of Mexico) and Karl Ludwig (whose son, Franz Ferdinand, would be killed in Sarajevo in 1914, an event that started the First World War). Charles also maintained a correspondence with Mary Shelley and was one of the members of the Shelley circle. After Charles’s death in 1850, he was buried in the Währing cemetery in Vienna. His grave was later moved to the Matzleinsdorf cemetery. Other Clairmont family members are buried in the family tomb. In 2018, I learned that the family tomb was going to be sold, the Clairmont remains would be reinterred in a collective tomb, and the existing gravestone would be removed. This paper describes my efforts to save the grave from destruction. Given the importance of Charles Clairmont to Shelley circle studies, I worked to have the tomb declared an ‘Ehrengräber’ (honorary grave), preserved forever by the city of Vienna. In November 2018, the mayor of Vienna approved the request and the grave will be preserved for posterity.