Mary Shelley

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Lore & Background

Mary Shelley was born Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin in Somers Town, London, in 1797. Her mother, Mary Wollstonecraft, died of puerperal fever shortly after Mary was born. Her father, William Godwin, raised her along with her older half-sister, Fanny Imlay. When she was four, her father married Mary Jane Clairmont, with whom Mary had a troubled relationship. In 1814, at age 16, Mary began a romance with Percy Bysshe Shelley, a 21-year-old married follower of her father's politics. Together with her stepsister Claire Clairmont, she and Percy left for France and travelled through Europe. Upon their return to England, Mary was pregnant with Percy's child. Over the next two years, they faced ostracism, constant debt, and the death of their prematurely born daughter. They married in late 1816, after the suicide of Percy Shelley's wife, Harriet. In 1816, the couple and Claire Clairmont spent a summer with Lord Byron and John William Polidori near Geneva, Switzerland, where Shelley conceived the idea for *Frankenstein*. The Shelleys left Britain in 1818 for Italy, where their second and third children died before Shelley gave birth to her last and only surviving child, Percy Florence Shelley. In 1822, her husband drowned when his sailing boat sank during a storm near Viareggio. A year later, Shelley returned to England and devoted herself to raising her son and to her career as a professional author. The last decade of her life was dogged by illness, most likely caused by the brain tumour which killed her at age 53.

Reader's Guide

Mary Shelley's significance rests primarily on her novel *Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus* (1818), which remains widely read and has inspired many theatrical and film adaptations. Until the 1970s, she was known mainly for that novel and for her efforts to publish her husband's works. Recent scholarship has yielded a more comprehensive view of her achievements, showing increasing interest in her other novels, including the historical novels *Valperga* (1823) and *Perkin Warbeck* (1830), the apocalyptic novel *The Last Man* (1826), and her final two novels, *Lodore* (1835) and *Falkner* (1837). Studies of her lesser-known works, such as the travel book *Rambles in Germany and Italy* (1844) and the biographical articles for Dionysius Lardner's *Cabinet Cyclopaedia* (1829–1846), support the growing view that Shelley remained a political radical throughout her life. Her works often 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 promoted by Percy Shelley and the Enlightenment political theories articulated by her father, William Godwin.

Did You Know?

• Mary Shelley's mother, Mary Wollstonecraft, died 11 days after giving birth to her.
• She conceived the idea for *Frankenstein* during a summer in 1816 spent with Lord Byron and John William Polidori near Geneva, Switzerland.
• Her husband Percy Bysshe Shelley drowned in 1822 when his sailing boat sank during a storm near Viareggio.
• She wrote the apocalyptic novel *The Last Man* (1826), which is considered an early example of science fiction.
• Her father, William Godwin, described her at age 15 as 'singularly bold, somewhat imperious, and active of mind.'