Percy Bysshe Shelley (4 August 1792 - 8 July 1822) was one of the major English Romantic poets and is regarded by critics as among the finest lyric poets in the English language. A radical in his poetry as well as his political and social views, Shelley did not achieve fame during his lifetime, but recognition for his poetry grew steadily following his death. Shelley was a key member of a close circle of visionary poets and writers that included Lord Byron; Leigh Hunt; Thomas Love Peacock; and his own second wife, Mary Shelley, the author of Frankenstein. Shelley is perhaps best known for such classic poems as Ozymandias, Ode to the West Wind, To a Skylark, Music, When Soft Voices Die, The Cloud and The Masque of Anarchy. Ozymandias remains one of the most influentail of English Orientalist poems ever written, along with Coleridge's 'Kubla Khan'. Shelley used opium to alter his state of thinking and free his mind. Shelley took laudanum, according to letters he wrote, as well as biograp