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Outcasts: A Novel of Mary Shelley
On a dark and stormy night in 1816, a teenage girl sat down and invented science fiction. Mary Shelley was no more than 18 years old when she wrote Frankenstein . From the moment of its publication 200 years ago, readers have been wondering, as Mary put it, “How I, then a young girl, came to think of, and to dilate upon, so very hideous an idea?” Outcasts takes readers behind the scenes, to reveal the surprisingly contemporary thoughts and feelings of Mary, an unmarried mother and the lover of radical poet Percy Shelley, their friend Lord Byron, and the other guests at the “most famous literary party in history”. What led the daughter of two of the most radical philosophers in England to turn her hand to horror?
272 pages, Paperback
Published May 1, 2016
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
November 24, 2016
Full review at Smart Bitches, Trashy Books
Outcasts: A Novel of Mary Shelley is about three days in the life of Mary Shelley. I have a burning interest in the life of Mary Shelley, so I was both excited and poised to nitpick. I also should confess having a bias in favor of the author, Sarah Stegall, because we like to sit on panels together and scream about how much we hate Byron.
As it turns out, I couldn’t find a damn thing to nitpick in this book. The book describes the characters exactly as I always pictured them. Mary is the designated grown-up, with abandonment issues. Claire, Mary’s stepsister, is a spoiled idiot. Polidori, Byron’s personal physician, is the “nice guy,” in the ironic sense – he thinks of himself as a nice guy who will finally make Mary respectable, but he doesn’t understand her at all. Byron is an asshole, and Percy Shelley wafts about in a cloud of sparkly butterflies (not literally). But they also have some depth to their characters, which gives the book intricacy and poignancy. It’s not a romance novel and it will probably appeal most to people who already know something about Mary Shelley’s life. Incidentally, even though Mary and Percy weren’t married during this point in the book, I’ll occasionally refer to them as “The Shelleys” just for clarity and succinctness.
It’s interesting that so much of this book involves people’s failure to see one another clearly. Instead, they create versions of people and they act as though these constructs are true. Claire sees Byron as a wounded soul who loves her and will be healed by her love. (It’s a painful and ugly deconstruction of the “rogue healed by a good woman” trope). Percy Shelley sees Byron as a rebel who lives according to his principles. Polidori sees Mary as a victim of an unfaithful lover (who, at the time, was married to another woman). Mary Shelley sees Byron initially as a heartless man who has no principles at all – later she comes to believe that he has a heart but that this heart has not led him to compassionate or responsible behavior.
I’m not sure how much this book would appeal to the general reader, but it is very well written. As someone with a specific interest in and some knowledge about the topic, I loved the book. It was a tiny but important window into the lives of people I could only approach in an abstract way through other research. It was thoughtful and interesting and frankly pretty juicy, too. The only reason I gave it a B instead of an A is that I think people who are new to Mary’s story will feel that the jump into the plot is too abrupt. For people who are already Mary Shelley fans, this book is perfect reading for a “dreary night in November.”
- Carrie S.
Outcasts: A Novel of Mary Shelley is about three days in the life of Mary Shelley. I have a burning interest in the life of Mary Shelley, so I was both excited and poised to nitpick. I also should confess having a bias in favor of the author, Sarah Stegall, because we like to sit on panels together and scream about how much we hate Byron.
As it turns out, I couldn’t find a damn thing to nitpick in this book. The book describes the characters exactly as I always pictured them. Mary is the designated grown-up, with abandonment issues. Claire, Mary’s stepsister, is a spoiled idiot. Polidori, Byron’s personal physician, is the “nice guy,” in the ironic sense – he thinks of himself as a nice guy who will finally make Mary respectable, but he doesn’t understand her at all. Byron is an asshole, and Percy Shelley wafts about in a cloud of sparkly butterflies (not literally). But they also have some depth to their characters, which gives the book intricacy and poignancy. It’s not a romance novel and it will probably appeal most to people who already know something about Mary Shelley’s life. Incidentally, even though Mary and Percy weren’t married during this point in the book, I’ll occasionally refer to them as “The Shelleys” just for clarity and succinctness.
It’s interesting that so much of this book involves people’s failure to see one another clearly. Instead, they create versions of people and they act as though these constructs are true. Claire sees Byron as a wounded soul who loves her and will be healed by her love. (It’s a painful and ugly deconstruction of the “rogue healed by a good woman” trope). Percy Shelley sees Byron as a rebel who lives according to his principles. Polidori sees Mary as a victim of an unfaithful lover (who, at the time, was married to another woman). Mary Shelley sees Byron initially as a heartless man who has no principles at all – later she comes to believe that he has a heart but that this heart has not led him to compassionate or responsible behavior.
I’m not sure how much this book would appeal to the general reader, but it is very well written. As someone with a specific interest in and some knowledge about the topic, I loved the book. It was a tiny but important window into the lives of people I could only approach in an abstract way through other research. It was thoughtful and interesting and frankly pretty juicy, too. The only reason I gave it a B instead of an A is that I think people who are new to Mary’s story will feel that the jump into the plot is too abrupt. For people who are already Mary Shelley fans, this book is perfect reading for a “dreary night in November.”
- Carrie S.
April 25, 2016
This was so compelling, I abandoned all else for the weekend to finish reading it. The author brings out motivations for the principal characters that make this a spellbinding good read!
August 5, 2016
A fascinating story about the woman who wrote Frankenstein and the events that inspired her. The ideals that led Mary Shelley to defy the world to be with the man she loved came at a terrible price. I had never considered how difficult that defiance must have been. Can't wait to read something more from this excellent author.
July 3, 2025
Stegall's historical novel brings alive the dark and stormy 1816 summer night in Switzreland of the birth of Shelley's "Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus" and John Polidori's 'The Vampyre," at the Villa Diodati in Switzerland. The historical characters of Lord Byron, Percy Shelley, his then teen age lover, Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin, and the physician John William Poldori engage in the a ghost story writing exercise which results in two seminal science fiction and horror stories that have become embedded in popular and literary culture ever since. I found it brilliantly written, well researched with plausible, striking characterizations and endlessly fascinating.
July 25, 2019
The first chunk of this book was pretty engaging, but it sort of devolved into a Sad Book About Sad People and Byron Is An Asshat. It pretty clearly showed Byron and Shelley's blinders about the limits of their efforts to live differently (ie being wealthy men). But certainly not something I'll feel the need to read again.
July 13, 2016
Review Friday.
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews