El mortal inmortal y otros relatos [The Immortal Mortal and Other Stories]

by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley

Mary W. Shelley (1797-1851)

Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin nació el 30 de agosto de 1797 en Londres (Inglaterra). Era hija única del filósofo William Godwin y la escritora feminista Mary Wollstonecraft. Mary creció y se educó en un ambiente intelectual y progresista, que marcaría fuertemente su personalidad. Comenzó a establecer una relación amorosa en 1814 con el poeta romántico Percy B. Shelley, que en esos momentos estaba casado; posteriormente, se casarían y tendrían hijos de los cuales solo les sobrevivió uno.

La obra más importante de Mary fue creada en unas vacaciones de los Shelley en la residencia suiza de Lord Byron. Era una noche tormentosa, y Byron propuso que cada asistente elaborara un relato de terror. Unos días después de la propuesta, Mary les leyó su creación, Frankenstein o el moderno Prometeo (1817), magistral historia que se convertiría en un clásico de la novela gótica.

Durante su vida, Mary Shelley fue tomada en serio como escritora. A su muerte, sin embargo, fue principalmente recordada como la esposa de Percy Bysshe Shelley y autora de una solo Frankenstein. En décadas recientes, la reedición de casi todas sus obras ha ocasionado un mayor reconocimiento de su valor, reconociéndola como una de las principales figuras del romanticismo.

Mary Shelley murió en Londres a causa de un tumor cerebral el 1 de febrero de 1851. Tenía 53 años.

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Published September 11, 2020

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.