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The Hyena's Daughter
Joint Winner of The Weatherglass Novella Prize, with Ali Smith.
The Hyena’s Daughter tells the far-too-untold story of a c19th sisterhood, the daughters of Mary Wollstonecraft: Fanny Imlay and Mary Shelley, the famed writer of Frankenstein, plus their step-sister Claire Clairmont, lover of Lord Byron.
Are they the three graces? The fates? They’re women, as alive and breathing and rebellious and analytical as you and me, and well aware and critical of the hemmed-in nature they’re expected to accept as women of their time – a time of “a new way of thinking, a new-world independence, a revolutionary world.”
It features their connection to Percy Bysshe Shelley – “how could we not love him, with his lofty ethics and words that flew like birds?” –and many of the other contemporary poets and thinkers of the time.
Pacy and assured, it turns its history to life from fragment to sensuous fragment. If the dead brought to life is to be Mary Shelley’s theme, this novella asks what the real source of life spirit is, the vital spark. This book, full of detail and richesse, is a piece of vitality in itself.”
The Hyena’s Daughter tells the far-too-untold story of a c19th sisterhood, the daughters of Mary Wollstonecraft: Fanny Imlay and Mary Shelley, the famed writer of Frankenstein, plus their step-sister Claire Clairmont, lover of Lord Byron.
Are they the three graces? The fates? They’re women, as alive and breathing and rebellious and analytical as you and me, and well aware and critical of the hemmed-in nature they’re expected to accept as women of their time – a time of “a new way of thinking, a new-world independence, a revolutionary world.”
It features their connection to Percy Bysshe Shelley – “how could we not love him, with his lofty ethics and words that flew like birds?” –and many of the other contemporary poets and thinkers of the time.
Pacy and assured, it turns its history to life from fragment to sensuous fragment. If the dead brought to life is to be Mary Shelley’s theme, this novella asks what the real source of life spirit is, the vital spark. This book, full of detail and richesse, is a piece of vitality in itself.”
177 pages, Kindle Edition
First published April 30, 2026
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May 7, 2026
The Hyena's Daughter by Jupiter Jones was one of the two winners of the Weatherglass Novella Prize as chosen by Ali Smith, whose citation is below.
The novel's title comes from Horace Walpole's reaction to Mary Wollstonecraft and her 'The Vindication of the Rights of Woman', when he pronounced 'That woman is a hyena in petticoats'.
The novel opens with a brief prologue in 1797, when Wollstonecraft, now married to the philosopher William Godwin, died shortly after giving birth to her second daughter Mary, her first daughter, from a different relationship, Fanny Imlay three years old.
But the main story is set in 1815-1816, and revolves around the relationship between Fanny (1794-1816), Mary Godwin (1797-1851; better known by her married name Mary Shelley) and their stepsister from Godwin's remarriage Claire Clairemont (1798-1879).
And the relationship of each of them with Percy Shelley and, in Claire's case, Lord Byron, as well as their interception with other leading philosophical and scientific figures of the time, including the controversy between John Abernethy and William Lawrence on materialism.
The story is told in a series of flash-fiction style chapters - one example below - in a variety of styles (e.g. there is a running series of dictionary definitions of the word 'stay' or 'stays' illustrated by Fanny's life) and perspectives, primarily Fanny's but also following Mary and Claire to Bath, although their travels around Europe with Shelley and Byron take place off the page.
And we see how Fanny's position as the elder of the three 'sisters', and the first to catch Shelley's eye, is gradually eroded as her two more glamorous and flighty companions forge lives (albeit tempesteous ones) away from the family home, leaving Fanny living with her step-father and step-mother, acting as a go-between for the troubled family factions but personally isolated. She eventually died by suicide by taking an overdose of laudanum in an inn in Swansea, her body not even claimed by the family.
This is a highly impressive and creative approach to historical fiction, at different times funny and tragic, page-turningly readable and yet philosophically erudite.
Ali Smith's citation
This novella tells the far-too-untold story of a c19th sisterhood, that of the daughters of Mary Wollstonecraft: Fanny Imlay and Mary Shelley, the famed writer of Frankenstein, plus their step sister Claire Clairmont. Are they the three graces? The fates? They’re women, as alive and breathing and rebellious and analytical as you and me, and well aware and critical of the hemmed-in nature they’re expected to accept as women of their time, a time of “a new way of thinking, a new-world independence, a revolutionary world.
It features their connection to Percy Bysshe Shelley – “how could we not love him, with his lofty ethics and words that flew like birds?” –and many of the other contemporary poets and thinkers of the time. Pacy and assured, it turns its history to life from fragment to sensuous fragment. If the dead brought to life is to be Mary Shelley’s theme, this novella asks what the real source of life spirit is, the vital spark. This novella, full of detail and richesse, is a piece of vitality in itself.
Extract:
Maybe a Meteor
Skinner Street, London
Fanny: We had all read Mr Shelley's letters, and we were all a little in love with him, how could we not love him, with his lofty ethics and words that flew like birds? He was fluent in the glorious idealism of my mother, the radical politics of my stepfather. He was young, rich, soon-to-be-titled. He came blazing into our lives like, like ... maybe a meteor?
Yes, he was married. We loved him all the same. Perhaps we loved him all the more. It was safe to love him, for we would love Harriet too.
Mary: Yes, he was married. But marriage - according to my father's philosophy - is an evil and odious monopoly. The worse of all shackles, preventing people from following the dictates of intellect and enquiry, Marriage dooms us to abide our livelong days by the thoughtless and romantic attachments of youth.
Claire: I'm not entirely sure that any of us were following the dictates of intellect and enquiry.
The publisher
The publisher, Weatherglass Books, was co-founded by the founder of the Republic of Consciousness / Queen Mary Small Press Fiction Prize, Neil Griffiths: Weatherglass was founded on a shared love of Penelope Fitzgerald’s The Blue Flower and a shared fear that it wouldn’t find a publisher today. Weatherglass Books wants to clear a space for the next The Blue Flower. “Running the Republic of Consciousness Prize I read hundreds of novels from small presses and loved a great many, but I did feel an absence of novels that were somehow exquisite at the simplest level: great story-telling built up from beautiful sentence-making.”
Other early reviews
https://shinynewbooks.co.uk/the-hyena...
https://www.buzzmag.co.uk/hyenas-daug...
https://thewritesofwoman.wordpress.co...
The novel's title comes from Horace Walpole's reaction to Mary Wollstonecraft and her 'The Vindication of the Rights of Woman', when he pronounced 'That woman is a hyena in petticoats'.
The novel opens with a brief prologue in 1797, when Wollstonecraft, now married to the philosopher William Godwin, died shortly after giving birth to her second daughter Mary, her first daughter, from a different relationship, Fanny Imlay three years old.
But the main story is set in 1815-1816, and revolves around the relationship between Fanny (1794-1816), Mary Godwin (1797-1851; better known by her married name Mary Shelley) and their stepsister from Godwin's remarriage Claire Clairemont (1798-1879).
And the relationship of each of them with Percy Shelley and, in Claire's case, Lord Byron, as well as their interception with other leading philosophical and scientific figures of the time, including the controversy between John Abernethy and William Lawrence on materialism.
The story is told in a series of flash-fiction style chapters - one example below - in a variety of styles (e.g. there is a running series of dictionary definitions of the word 'stay' or 'stays' illustrated by Fanny's life) and perspectives, primarily Fanny's but also following Mary and Claire to Bath, although their travels around Europe with Shelley and Byron take place off the page.
And we see how Fanny's position as the elder of the three 'sisters', and the first to catch Shelley's eye, is gradually eroded as her two more glamorous and flighty companions forge lives (albeit tempesteous ones) away from the family home, leaving Fanny living with her step-father and step-mother, acting as a go-between for the troubled family factions but personally isolated. She eventually died by suicide by taking an overdose of laudanum in an inn in Swansea, her body not even claimed by the family.
This is a highly impressive and creative approach to historical fiction, at different times funny and tragic, page-turningly readable and yet philosophically erudite.
Ali Smith's citation
This novella tells the far-too-untold story of a c19th sisterhood, that of the daughters of Mary Wollstonecraft: Fanny Imlay and Mary Shelley, the famed writer of Frankenstein, plus their step sister Claire Clairmont. Are they the three graces? The fates? They’re women, as alive and breathing and rebellious and analytical as you and me, and well aware and critical of the hemmed-in nature they’re expected to accept as women of their time, a time of “a new way of thinking, a new-world independence, a revolutionary world.
It features their connection to Percy Bysshe Shelley – “how could we not love him, with his lofty ethics and words that flew like birds?” –and many of the other contemporary poets and thinkers of the time. Pacy and assured, it turns its history to life from fragment to sensuous fragment. If the dead brought to life is to be Mary Shelley’s theme, this novella asks what the real source of life spirit is, the vital spark. This novella, full of detail and richesse, is a piece of vitality in itself.
Extract:
Maybe a Meteor
Skinner Street, London
Fanny: We had all read Mr Shelley's letters, and we were all a little in love with him, how could we not love him, with his lofty ethics and words that flew like birds? He was fluent in the glorious idealism of my mother, the radical politics of my stepfather. He was young, rich, soon-to-be-titled. He came blazing into our lives like, like ... maybe a meteor?
Yes, he was married. We loved him all the same. Perhaps we loved him all the more. It was safe to love him, for we would love Harriet too.
Mary: Yes, he was married. But marriage - according to my father's philosophy - is an evil and odious monopoly. The worse of all shackles, preventing people from following the dictates of intellect and enquiry, Marriage dooms us to abide our livelong days by the thoughtless and romantic attachments of youth.
Claire: I'm not entirely sure that any of us were following the dictates of intellect and enquiry.
The publisher
The publisher, Weatherglass Books, was co-founded by the founder of the Republic of Consciousness / Queen Mary Small Press Fiction Prize, Neil Griffiths: Weatherglass was founded on a shared love of Penelope Fitzgerald’s The Blue Flower and a shared fear that it wouldn’t find a publisher today. Weatherglass Books wants to clear a space for the next The Blue Flower. “Running the Republic of Consciousness Prize I read hundreds of novels from small presses and loved a great many, but I did feel an absence of novels that were somehow exquisite at the simplest level: great story-telling built up from beautiful sentence-making.”
Other early reviews
https://shinynewbooks.co.uk/the-hyena...
https://www.buzzmag.co.uk/hyenas-daug...
https://thewritesofwoman.wordpress.co...
May 29, 2026
Back six months ago when the new Frankenstein film came out, I read three novels centered around the so-called Haunted Summer of 1816, during which Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley first told her tale at Villa Diodati. The story has always held a fascination for me, perhaps initiated by the Ken Russell film, Gothic. This novella, worthy co-winner of the inaugural Weatherglass Award was not out yet, but I think it the best of the lot, even though the proceedings of that summer are barely even mentioned.
Instead, the tale told here centers on Mary's half-sister Fanny, three years older and the object of Shelley's initial amorous attention - and most of the book is told from her POV. It's an ingenious way into the story of the Godwin household, and Jones does a superlative job of channeling both the era and the mind of the forgotten sister, with just enough humor and hints of modernism.
Instead, the tale told here centers on Mary's half-sister Fanny, three years older and the object of Shelley's initial amorous attention - and most of the book is told from her POV. It's an ingenious way into the story of the Godwin household, and Jones does a superlative job of channeling both the era and the mind of the forgotten sister, with just enough humor and hints of modernism.
September 21, 2026
locked in reading weekend 🙏 really good had me hooked lovely stylistic writing
June 29, 2026
some of the writing was gorgeous but i feel this had the potential to be so much better, it jumped around too much for me and i didn’t get on with the short fragment style
August 29, 2026
'Inky black and heavy as shame.... Treacle black and ordinary as blankets.... Truffle black and risky as lips...'
Beautiful use of language in this novella that tells the story of three sisters. Mary Godwin later Shelley and her sister Fanny, both daughters of Mary Wollstonecraft. And stepsister Claire. Caught up in the world of poetry and poets and ideas, the three sisters live fascinating lives. But Jupiter Jones shows us the fractures between them and the different routes their lives take.
Meticulously researched, I felt I learned so much about the women in this book. I have often crossed paths with the lives of the poets, visiting Shelley's La Spezia and catching drifts of Byron in Rome and Venice. Here we see the women that sometimes walked invisible beside them.
Beautiful use of language in this novella that tells the story of three sisters. Mary Godwin later Shelley and her sister Fanny, both daughters of Mary Wollstonecraft. And stepsister Claire. Caught up in the world of poetry and poets and ideas, the three sisters live fascinating lives. But Jupiter Jones shows us the fractures between them and the different routes their lives take.
Meticulously researched, I felt I learned so much about the women in this book. I have often crossed paths with the lives of the poets, visiting Shelley's La Spezia and catching drifts of Byron in Rome and Venice. Here we see the women that sometimes walked invisible beside them.
June 17, 2026
To quote my friend Simon Cowell, I didn’t like this. I LOVED it.
This was so clever and emotional and just amazing. I knew so little about Mary Shelley and her sisters other than the obvious, it was so interesting to hear their family history.
Laudanum, do they still make that? Sounds interesting.
This was so clever and emotional and just amazing. I knew so little about Mary Shelley and her sisters other than the obvious, it was so interesting to hear their family history.
Laudanum, do they still make that? Sounds interesting.
July 1, 2026
This little novella just stole my heart.
The writing is gorgeous - brief and heart-wrenching, each word chosen with such deliberate care.
The writing is gorgeous - brief and heart-wrenching, each word chosen with such deliberate care.
June 1, 2026
I knew the story of Mary Shelley but not of her sister Fanny Imlay, or their step-sister, Claire Clairmont, who was the lover of Lord Byron. The subject matter is fascinating and Jones not only manages to bring the three sisters to life on the page, she also creates a real sense of their time in history - the concrete details of London, its smells, shops and people, the small life that Fanny is required to live (because she is a woman) and the scandal of Mary and Claire running away to Europe with the poet Shelley. In addition Jones brings the emotional lives of the sisters to the page - Mary loses her tiny baby - but she also brings their intellectual life to the page. The story of Fanny Imlay, who is the main character in this novella, is tragic - if you don't know I will not ruin the story by telling you here - this too is written with great sensitivity.
June 16, 2026
She admires the Guercino, Guido Reni, Gellée, most of all the Murillo. Gazes at a painting of the Three Graces dancing barefoot in a glade and, suppressing a smile, thinks of her mother and her Aunts - Mary, Everina, Eliza, three sisters. Had they ever danced like that, girlishly, with ribbons in their hands? The two younger ones are looking up to Mary, expecting her to save them from ... from what, exactly? From themselves?
Disorientated now, she passes through an arch and another arch and finds herself facing a small, dark painting. Fanny feels snared by this picture; it has caught her off guard and demands she look. Objectively, she admires the composition, the light, the handling of the drapery, the subtlety of the colours - Venetian reds and umbers. A painting of three women, but these three are not dancing. One spins, one measures, one cuts. And they are old. Older than Aunt fiza and Aunt Everina, older than all the pious dead of ode portraits, older than the Bible even. These three are the Fats, Clotho, Lachesis and Atropos busily making, allotting and terminating lives. The first sister glares out towards the viewer, the second looks distractedly over her shoulder at something beyond the frame. The third sister's face is half-hidden in shadow.
Joint winner of the 2026 Weatherglass Novella Prize (judged by Ali Smith) and the first to be published by Weatherglass (which is run by Neil Griffiths – founder of the Republic of Consciousness Prize).
Set from 1815 to 1816, its three key characters are Mary Shelley (daughter of philosopher and woman’s rights advocate Mary Wollstonecraft and political philosopher Wiliam Godwin), her younger stepsister (via her father and his second wife) Clara Clairmont (one time lover of Byron and participant in Mary’s various Continental Escapades) and her much less well known older step-sister (via her mother and her first husband an American diplomat) Fanny Imlay/Godwin.
And after an introduction when the three grow up exploring London together, it is the plain and pox-marked Fanny who is at the heart of the novel – starting from when she was the first to attract the charismatic Shelley after he spends time in the Godwin household, leading her to be sent away to relatives in Wales for proprietary sakes even as Shelley is already transferring his attentions to the more attractive and grasping Mary, leading to their first Continental elopement.
From there as Shelley’s adventures and misadventures play out Fanny increasingly finds herself both as something of a mediator/go-between Godwin and his wife and her scandal attracting sisters, and also increasingly confined by her circumstances (a number of chapters play on definitions of “stay” or “stays” referring both to the confining garments Fanny has inherited from her mother and the confinement of her life) – leading eventually to her anonymous death from overdose (and an anonymous burial).
On one level this is pretty straight historical fiction (no attempt is made – as for example in Louisa Hall’s “Reproduction” - to link the tale of Mary Shelley to a modern day narrative; there is little deviation from modern historians views on the interactions between the parties) but on another level very distinct (where most historical fiction is expansive, this is told in a series of flash fiction like fragments) and the overall effect makes for an engrossing and entertaining read – one I found best read twice, the first to get an overall feel for the narrative (its length and approach means the reader does have to do a certain amount of filling in the gaps), the second to fully appreciate the considerable quality of the writing.
I would love to see this entered for the 2027 Walter Scott Prize as a result.
July 18, 2026
"Why did Fanny kill herself? What drove her to this extreme action? Was it a matter of her heart or her principles? This is the story that interests me, but telling the story of Fanny Imlay is impossible without also telling the story of Wollstonecraft’s other daughter, Fanny’s half-sister."
Jupiter Jones writes these words in an article dated June 5, 2026, on the website Literary Hub. "Fanny," she says, "is a minor character, overshadowed by her more famous relatives. She appears mostly in the literal and metaphorical margins of other stories and other lives."
And so she aims to centre Fanny's own story on the page, as a separate being from her famous sister, Mary Shelley. Not only does she bring Fanny to life, but she does it in remarkably poetic prose. I was entranced by Jones's use of repetition, dictionary entries, nursery rhymes. I especially loved the chapter "Fanny and the Garden Path," where Fanny and Shelley walk too closely together, sit too closely together, "even if one of them is married." In other chapters, Jones examines the various definitions of the word "stay," and all the implications the word has in Fanny's life. The words ebb and flow like the waters of the many rivers that run through the book.
If you're looking for historical fiction written in unusual forms with beautiful language, this book is for you. Very highly recommended.
Jupiter Jones writes these words in an article dated June 5, 2026, on the website Literary Hub. "Fanny," she says, "is a minor character, overshadowed by her more famous relatives. She appears mostly in the literal and metaphorical margins of other stories and other lives."
And so she aims to centre Fanny's own story on the page, as a separate being from her famous sister, Mary Shelley. Not only does she bring Fanny to life, but she does it in remarkably poetic prose. I was entranced by Jones's use of repetition, dictionary entries, nursery rhymes. I especially loved the chapter "Fanny and the Garden Path," where Fanny and Shelley walk too closely together, sit too closely together, "even if one of them is married." In other chapters, Jones examines the various definitions of the word "stay," and all the implications the word has in Fanny's life. The words ebb and flow like the waters of the many rivers that run through the book.
If you're looking for historical fiction written in unusual forms with beautiful language, this book is for you. Very highly recommended.
August 17, 2026
For its size, this novella punches far above its weight. The story centres on Fanny Imlay, elder daughter of Mary Wolstonecraft, her sister Mary (who married the poet Shelley) and their half-sister Claire Clairmont, lover of Lord Byron. The changing relationship among them is told in a series of flashes, fragments and snippets, leaving it to readers to fill in the gaps in the narrative but not leaving us floundering in the dark. The foreshadowing of Fanny's ultimate fate is handled with a deft touch through her feelings for her dead mother, but her sad ending is never in doubt.
I loved this book for its convincing historical atmosphere, the sparseness of the language, which reflects the harshness of the times, and most of all for its innovative and exciting use of short chapters. The fragmentary style won't be to everyone's taste, but those looking for something a little different will be delighted by its inventiveness.
I loved this book for its convincing historical atmosphere, the sparseness of the language, which reflects the harshness of the times, and most of all for its innovative and exciting use of short chapters. The fragmentary style won't be to everyone's taste, but those looking for something a little different will be delighted by its inventiveness.
July 21, 2026
I can't believe how beautiful this was.
I picked it up randomly because I've always been interested in the gossip from the romantic poets. But the big names like Percy Shelley and Lord Byron are secondary to the story. This novel focuses on the sisterly relationship of the daughters of Mary Wollstonecraft, and especially the forgotten older sister, Fanny. We get to know the intricacies of growing up in the shadow of everyone around Fanny through glimpses of her daily existence.
I wish this book was longer.
I picked it up randomly because I've always been interested in the gossip from the romantic poets. But the big names like Percy Shelley and Lord Byron are secondary to the story. This novel focuses on the sisterly relationship of the daughters of Mary Wollstonecraft, and especially the forgotten older sister, Fanny. We get to know the intricacies of growing up in the shadow of everyone around Fanny through glimpses of her daily existence.
I wish this book was longer.
Review of advance copy received from Publisher
Review to follow.
May 28, 2026
The tragic story of Mary Wollstonecraft's other daughter beautifully brought to life.
May 29, 2026
Absolutely beautiful prose! Not only were the vignettes gorgeous, but they added up to an amazing overall story.
Displaying 1 - 15 of 15 reviews