Mathilda & Other Stories

by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, Jenny DiPlacidi (Annotations)

With Notes and an Introduction by Dr Jenny DiPlacidi, University of Kent.

Mathilda is Mary Shelley’s haunting story of an incestuous and fatal love. The narrative traces the teenaged Mathilda’s reunion with her unnamed father, and the development of their obsessive bond that culminates in suicide. Shelley’s own father, William Godwin, was so disturbed after reading the manuscript that he refused to return it to her and it remained unpublished for over one hundred years. This near-forgotten and harrowing work encompasses the Romantic themes of the individual’s growth, isolation, and the power of imagination.

Shelley’s violent and terrifying short stories share Mathilda’s fixation with feminist concerns and Gothic conventions. The murderous plots and sinister settings of these later stories reveal Shelley’s ongoing preoccupation with the supernatural, transformation, and untamed nature.

Other Stories include:

A Tale of the Passions
The Bride of Modern Italy
Ferdinando Eboli
The Sisters of Albano
The Evil Eye
The False Rhyme
The Mourner
The Swiss Peasant
Transformation
The Dream
The Brother and Sister
The Invisible Girl
The Pole
The Mortal Immortal
The Elder Son
The Parvenue
The Pilgrims
Euphrasia
The Heir of Mondolfo

Genres: Classics, Gothic, Short Stories, Horror

422 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1820

About the author

Mary Shelley (née Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin, often known as Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley) was an English novelist, short story writer, dramatist, essayist, biographer, travel writer, and editor of the works of her husband, 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.

Mary Shelley was taken seriously as a writer in her own lifetime, though reviewers often missed the political edge to her novels. After her death, however, she was chiefly remembered only as the wife of Percy Bysshe Shelley and as the author of Frankenstein. It was not until 1989, when Emily Sunstein published her prizewinning biography Mary Shelley: Romance and Reality, that a full-length scholarly biography analyzing all of Shelley's letters, journals, and works within their historical context was published.

The well-meaning attempts of Mary Shelley's son and daughter-in-law to "Victorianise" her memory through the censoring of letters and biographical material contributed to a perception of Mary Shelley as a more conventional, less reformist figure than her works suggest. Her own timid omissions from Percy Shelley's works and her quiet avoidance of public controversy in the later years of her life added to this impression.

The eclipse of Mary Shelley's reputation as a novelist and biographer meant that, until the last thirty years, most of her works remained out of print, obstructing a larger view of her achievement. She was seen as a one-novel author, if that. In recent decades, however, the republication of almost all her writings has stimulated a new recognition of its value. Her voracious reading habits and intensive study, revealed in her journals and letters and reflected in her works, is now better appreciated. Shelley's recognition of herself as an author has also been recognized; after Percy's death, she wrote about her authorial ambitions: "I think that I can maintain myself, and there is something inspiriting in the idea". Scholars now consider Mary Shelley to be a major Romantic figure, significant for her literary achievement and her political voice as a woman and a liberal.

Reviews

[Bri Fidelity · Rating 3 out of 5]

The good stories are good in an Ann Radcliffe sort of way. The bad stories are bad in an Ann Radcliffe sort of way.

I recommend this book to fans of Ann Radcliffe who have busy lives.

[Niamh Ennis · Rating 3 out of 5]

Took a while, but I got there. Dramatic and full of glorification writing about honour, nature and liberty it succeeds in describing alot of historic context without making it dense. By God this woman is obsessed with orphaned girls taken in by rich benefactors and girls who lose their mothers and build a relationship then with their father's for good or ill. They almost always marry, a good deal of the time at least to someone they like buy often barely know. I love the drams but alot of depressed people dealing with familial death. Few gems in there such as the one about the immortal.

[lisa_emily · Rating 3 out of 5]

I only read Mathilda for now

[valeria · Rating 3 out of 5]

Anthologies always end up being three starts, it’s just impossible to make every single story good. My favorite ones were The Mourner (lowkey made me cry) and Transformation (bc it reminds me of Frankenstein, and how can you not love that).

[M · Rating 5 out of 5]

six stars