 The coast offered Percy Shelley and Edward Williams the chance to enjoy their " perfect plaything for the summer " , a new sailing boat . The boat had been designed by Daniel Roberts and Edward Trelawny , an admirer of Byron 's who had joined the party in January 1822 . On 1 July 1822 , Percy Shelley , Edward Ellerker Williams , and Captain Daniel Roberts sailed south down the coast to Livorno . There Percy Shelley discussed with Byron and Leigh Hunt the launch of a radical magazine called The Liberal . On 8 July , he and Edward Williams set out on the return journey to Lerici with their eighteen @-@ year @-@ old boatboy , Charles Vivian . They never reached their destination . A letter arrived at Villa Magni from Hunt to Percy Shelley , dated 8 July , saying , " pray write to tell us how you got home , for they say you had bad weather after you sailed monday & we are anxious " . " The paper fell from me , " Mary told a friend later . " I trembled all over . " She and Jane Williams rushed desperately to Livorno and then to Pisa in the fading hope that their husbands were still alive . Ten days after the storm , three bodies washed up on the coast near Viareggio , midway between Livorno and Lerici . Trelawny , Byron , and Hunt cremated Percy Shelley ’ s corpse on the beach at Viareggio . 
