Mary Shelley

Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, née Godwin (30 August 1797 – 1 February 1851) was an English novelist who wrote the Gothic novel Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus (1818). She also edited and promoted the works of her husband, the Romantic poet and philosopher Percy Bysshe Shelley. Her father was the political philosopher William Godwin and her mother was the philosopher and feminist Mary Wollstonecraft.

Shelley's mother died less than a month after giving birth to her. She was raised by her father who was able to provide her with a rich if informal education, encouraging her to adhere to his Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, née Godwin (30 August 1797 – 1 February 1851) was an English novelist who wrote the Gothic novel Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus (1818). She also edited and promoted the works of her husband, the Romantic poet and philosopher Percy Bysshe Shelley. Her father was the political philosopher William Godwin and her mother was the philosopher and feminist Mary Wollstonecraft.

Shelley's mother died less than a month after giving birth to her. She was raised by her father who was able to provide her with a rich if informal education, encouraging her to adhere to his own anarchist political theories. When she was four, her father married a neighbour with whom Shelley came to have a troubled relationship.

In 1814, Shelley began a romance with one of her father's political followers, Percy Bysshe Shelley, who was already married. Together with her stepsister, Claire Clairmont, she and Percy left for France and travelled through Europe. Upon their return to England, Shelley was pregnant with Percy's child. Over the next two years, she and Percy faced ostracism, constant debt and the death of their prematurely born daughter. They married in late 1816, after the suicide of Percy Shelley's first wife, Harriet.

In 1816, the couple famously spent a summer with Lord Byron, John William Polidori and Claire Clairmont near Geneva, Switzerland, where Shelley conceived the idea for her novel 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 from then on devoted herself to the upbringing of her son and a 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.

Until the 1970s, Shelley was known mainly for her efforts to publish her husband's works and for her novel Frankenstein, which remains widely read and has inspired many theatrical and film adaptations. Recent scholarship has yielded a more comprehensive view of Shelley's achievements. Scholars have shown increasing interest in her literary output, particularly in her novels, which include 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. Shelley's 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. ...more

Mary Shelley Books

Romantic Outlaws: The Extraordinary Lives of Mary Wollstonecraft and Her Daughter Mary Shelley

Mary's Monster: Love, Madness, and How Mary Shelley Created Frankenstein

In Search of Mary Shelley: The Girl Who Wrote Frankenstein

The Mortal Immortal: The Complete Supernatural Short Fiction of Mary Shelley

The Lady and Her Monsters: A Tale of Dissections, Real-Life Dr. Frankensteins, and the Creation of Mary Shelley's Masterpiece

The Monsters: Mary Shelley and the Curse of Frankenstein

Young Romantics: The Tangled Lives of English Poetry's Greatest Generation

Her Lost Words: A Novel of Mary Wollstonecraft and Mary Shelley

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Lists

The Dark Descent of Elizabeth Frankenstein by Kiersten White

Daughters of Frankenstein by Steve Berman

Essential Monster of Frankenstein, Vol. 1 by Gary Friedrich

Frankenverse

38 books — 7 voters

Frankenstein by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley

The Complete Poems by Percy Bysshe Shelley

A Vindication of the Rights of Woman by Mary Wollstonecraft

The Casebook of Victor Frankenstein by Peter Ackroyd

The Truth Behind the Monster

42 books — 36 voters

Mary Who Wrote Frankenstein by Linda Bailey

Through The Tempests Dark and Wild by Sharon Darrow

Juvenile Nonfiction on Mary Shelley

10 books — 2 voters

Mary Shelley in YA & Middle Grade Fiction

60 books — 15 voters

The Ultimate Frankenstein by Byron Preiss

The Frankenstein Omnibus by Peter Haining

Frankenstein in Baghdad by Ahmed Saadawi

The Rivals of Frankenstein by Michel Parry

Frankensteinia

97 books — 10 voters

The Monsters We Deserve by Marcus Sedgwick

Mary Shelley in Fiction

38 books — 10 voters

Related Genres

Horror
Percy Bysshe Shelley
Mary Wollstonecraft
Hoŕror
William Godwin

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Quotes Tagged “Mary Shelley”

“ Nuestras almas están formadas de muy extraña manera y nuestras vidas penden solo de leves lazos, cuya rotura puede arrojarlas a la prosperidad o la ruina. ”
― Mary Shelley, Frankenstein: The 1818 Text

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“ Our husbands decide without asking our consent, or having our concurrence; for, to tell you the truth, I hate this boat, though I say nothing." Mary Shelley to Jane Williams, talking the boat that Shelley and his friend Williams bought. ...more ”
― Ivan Roe, Shelley: The Last Phase

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