Mary Shelley (née Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin) (30 August 1797 – 1 February 1851) was a British novelist, short story writer, dramatist, essayist, biographer, and travel writer, best known for her Gothic novel Frankenstein or The Modern Prometheus (1818). She also edited the works of her husband, the Romantic poet and philosopher Percy Bysshe Shelley. She was the daughter of the political philosopher William Godwin and the writer, philosopher, and feminist Mary Wollstonecraft.
Easton Press Mary Shelley books
Frankenstein - Horror Classics (13 volume set) - 2003
Author Mary Shelley
Mary Shelley's mother died after giving birth to her and she was brought up, along with her older sister Fanny Imlay, by William Godwin. When Mary was three, her father married his neighbour, Mary Jane Clairmont. William Godwin provided his daughter with a rich, if informal, education, encouraging her to believe in his liberal political theories.
In 1814, Mary Godwin fell in love with one of her father’s political followers, the married philosopher-poet Percy Bysshe Shelley, and the lovers eloped to France, along with Mary's step-sister, Claire Clairmont. The three travelled through France to Switzerland and returned along the Rhine, by which time Mary Godwin was pregnant. Over the next two years, she and Percy faced ostracism, constant debt, and the loss of their prematurely born daughter. They married in late 1816 after the suicide of Percy Shelley's first wife
In 1817, the couple spent a famous summer with Lord Byron, John William Polidori, and Claire Clairmont near Geneva, Switzerland, where Mary conceived the idea for her novel Frankenstein. In 1818, the Shelleys left Britain for Italy, where their second and third child died before Mary Shelley gave birth to her last and only surviving child, Percy Florence. In 1822, Percy Bysshe Shelley drowned when his sailing boat sank during a storm in the Bay of Spezia. A year later, Mary Shelley returned to England and from then on devoted herself to the upbringing of her son and a career as a professional author. The last decade of her life was dogged by illness, probably caused by the brain tumour that killed her at the age of 53.
Until the 1970s, Mary Shelley was known mainly for her novel Frankenstein, which remains widely read and has inspired many theatrical and film adaptations, and her efforts to publish Percy Shelley's works. However, recent scholarship has yielded a more comprehensive view of Mary Shelley’s achievement. Scholars have shown increasing interest in her literary output, particularly in the novels, which include Valperga (1823), The Last Man (1826), Perkin Warbeck (1830), Lodore (1835), and Falkner (1837). Studies of lesser-known works such as the travel book Rambles in Germany and Italy (1844) and the biographical articles for Lardner's Cabinet Cyclopaedia (1829–46) support the growing view that Mary Shelley remained a political radical throughout her life. Mary Shelley's works argue that cooperation and sympathy, particularly as practised by women in the family, were the ways to reform civil society. This view was a direct challenge to the individualistic Romantic ethos put forth by Percy Shelley and the Enlightenment political theories articulated by her father William Godwin.
Early life
Mary Shelley was born Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin in London, England, the second daughter of famed feminist, educator and writer Mary Wollstonecraft and the equally famous liberal philosopher, anarchic journalist and atheist dissenter, William Godwin. Her mother died eleven days after her birth and her father, left to care for Mary and her older half-sister Fanny Imlay, quickly married again. Under his tutelage, Mary received an excellent education unusual for girls at the time.
She met Percy Bysshe Shelley, a political radical and free-thinker like her father, when Percy and his first wife Harriet visited Godwin's home and bookshop in London. Percy, unhappy in his marriage, began to visit Godwin more frequently (and alone). In the summer of 1814 he and Mary (then only 16) fell in love. They eloped to France on 27 July, with Mary's stepsister, Jane Clairmont, in tow. This was the poet's second elopement, as he had also eloped with Harriet three years before. Upon their return several weeks later, the young couple were dismayed to find that Godwin, whose views on free love apparently did not apply to his daughter, refused to see them.
Mary consoled herself with her studies and with Percy, who would always be, despite disillusionment and tragedy, the love of her life. Percy, too, was more than satisfied with his new partner in these first years. He exulted that Mary was "one who can feel poetry and understand philosophy" — although she, like Harriet before her, refused his attempts to share her with his friend Thomas Hogg. Mary thus learned that Percy's loyalty to Godwin's free love ideals would always conflict with his deep desire for "true love" as expressed in so much of his poetry.
Mary and Percy shared a love of languages and literature. They enjoyed reading and discussing books together, such as the classics that Percy took to reading upon their return to London towards the end of the year. During this time Percy Shelley wrote "Alastor, or The Spirit of Solitude", in which he counsels against the loss of "sweet human love" in exchange for the activism that he himself was to promote and indulge in for much of his life.
During May of 1816, the couple, again with Jane (now Claire) Clairmont, traveled to Lake Geneva to summer near the famous and scandalous poet Lord Byron, whose recent affair with Claire had left her both pregnant and somewhat obsessed with him. In terms of English literature, it was to be a productive summer. Percy began work on "Hymn To Intellectual Beauty" and "Mont Blanc". Mary, in the meantime, was inspired to write an enduring masterpiece of her own.
Forced to stay indoors by the climatic events of the "Year Without a Summer" on one particular evening, the group of young writers and intellectuals, enthralled by the ghost stories from the book 'Fantasmagoriana', decided to have a ghost-story writing contest. Another guest, Dr. John Polidori, came up with The Vampyre, later to become a strong influence on Bram Stoker's Dracula.
Other guests wove tales of equal horror, but Mary found herself unable to invent one. That night, however, she had a waking dream where she saw "the pale student of unhallowed arts kneeling beside the thing he had put together." Then she set herself to put the story on paper. In time it would be published as Frankenstein. Its success would endure long after the other writings produced that summer had faded.
Mary had incorporated a number of different sources into her work, not the least of which was the Promethean myth from Ovid. The influence of John Milton's Paradise Lost, The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, the book the 'creature' finds in the cabin, is also clearly evident within the novel. Also, both Shelleys had read William Beckford's Vathek (a Gothic novel that has been likened to an Arabesque). Frankenstein is also full of references to her mother, Mary Wolstonecraft, and her major work A Vindication of the Rights of Woman which discusses the lack of equal education for males and females. The inclusion of her mother's ideas in her work is also related to the theme of creation/motherhood in the novel.
Can one miss the darkling reflection of the Beckford character's "insolent desire to "penetrate the secrets of heaven" in both "Alastor" ("I have made my bed In charnels and on coffins") and Mary's acclaimed piece ("Who shall perceive the horrors ...as I dabbled among the unhallowed damp of the grave, or tortured the living animal to animate the lifeless clay")? Indeed, many, if not most, commentators take this "desire" to be a major theme of Frankenstein.
Mary and Percy were both ethical vegetarians and strong advocates for animals. One can see references to vegetarianism in her writing. For example, in her novel Frankenstein, the creature was a vegetarian.
Returning to England in September of 1816, Mary and Percy were stunned by two family suicides in quick succession. On 9 October 1816, Mary's older half-sister, Fanny Imlay, left the Godwin home and took her own life at a distant inn. On 10 December, Percy's first wife drowned herself in London's Hyde Park. Discarded and pregnant, she had not welcomed Percy's invitation to join Mary and himself in their new household.
On 30 December 1816, shortly after Harriet's death, Percy and Mary were married, now with Godwin's blessing. Their attempts to gain custody of Percy's two children by Harriet failed, but their writing careers enjoyed more success when, in the spring of 1817, Mary finished Frankenstein.
Over the following years, Mary's household grew to include her own children by Percy, occasional friends, and Claire's daughter by Byron. Shelley moved his menage from place to place first in England and then in Italy. Mary suffered the death of her infant daughter Clara outside Venice, after which her young son Will died too, in Rome, as Percy moved the household yet again. By now Mary had resigned herself to her husband's self-centered restlessness and his romantic enthusiasms for other women. The birth of her only surviving child, Percy Florence Shelley, consoled her somewhat for her losses.
Eventually the group settled in Lerici, a town close to La Spezia in Italy, but it was an ill-fated choice. It was here that Claire learned of her daughter's death at the Italian convent to which Byron had sent her, and that Mary almost died of a miscarriage. And it was from here, in July 1822, that Percy sailed away up the coast to Livorno to plan the founding of a journal with a group of friends. Caught in a storm on his return, he drowned at sea on 8 July 1822, aged 30, along with his friend Edward Williams and a young boat attendant. Percy left his last poem, a shadowy work called The Triumph Of Life, unfinished.
Mary was tireless in promoting her late husband's work, including editing and annotating unpublished material. Despite their troubled later life together, she revered her late husband's memory and helped build his reputation as one of the major poets of the English Romantic period. But she also found occasions to write a few more novels, including Valperga, The Fortunes of Perkin Warbeck and Falkner. Critics say these works do not begin to approach the power and fame of Frankenstein; The Last Man, a pioneering science fiction novel of the human apocalypse in the distant future, is, however, sometimes considered her best work, as is Maria, a novel published posthumously. Matilda is a short novel which was not published until the 1950's. It is perhaps her most controversial work since it involves the taboo subject of incest. Godwin, Shelley's father, refused to publish the work probably because of its subject matter and its obvious autobiographical undertones.
Mary Shelley died of brain cancer on 1 February 1851, aged 53, in London and was interred at St. Peter's Churchyard in Bournemouth, in the English county of Dorset. At the time of her death, she was a recognized novelist.
Frankenstein
At its heart, Frankenstein is a cautionary tale about the dangers of unchecked ambition and the pursuit of knowledge without regard for its ethical implications. The novel follows Victor Frankenstein, a young scientist obsessed with unlocking the secrets of life and death. In his fervor, he creates a creature assembled from stolen body parts, only to recoil in horror at the grotesque being he has brought to life. The creature, abandoned and rejected by its creator, seeks revenge, leading to a tragic series of events that culminate in a confrontation between creator and creation. What sets Frankenstein apart from other Gothic tales of its time is its exploration of complex moral and philosophical themes. Mary Shelley delves into questions of identity, responsibility, and the nature of humanity, challenging readers to confront their own preconceptions and biases. Through the character of the creature, she offers a poignant commentary on the dangers of alienation and the power of empathy and understanding.
Beyond its status as a classic work of literature, Frankenstein continues to resonate with contemporary audiences for its relevance to ongoing debates about science, technology, and the ethical responsibilities of creators. Mary Shelley's masterpiece remains as vital and compelling today as it was over two centuries ago, a testament to the enduring power of storytelling to captivate the imagination and illuminate the human experience.
Mary Shelley quotes
"The beginning is always today."
"The companions of our childhood always possess a certain power over our minds which hardly any later friend can obtain."
"Invention, it must be humbly admitted, does not consist in creating out of void but out of chaos."
"The last man! Yes I may well describe that solitary being's feelings, feeling myself as the last relic of a beloved race, my companions extinct before me." - from The Last Man
Frankenstein quotes
"Beware; for I am fearless, and therefore powerful."
"Nothing is so painful to the human mind as a great and sudden change."
"Life, although it may only be an accumulation of anguish, is dear to me, and I will defend it."
"The beauty of the dream vanished, and breathless horror and disgust filled my heart."
"The world was to me a secret which I desired to divine."
"My dreams were all my own; I accounted for them to nobody; they were my refuge when annoyed - my dearest pleasure when free."
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