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

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

In Search of Mary Shelley: The Girl Who Wrote Frankenstein

The Monsters: Mary Shelley and the Curse of Frankenstein

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

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

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

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Lists

The Complete Stories and Poems by Edgar Allan Poe

Frankenstein by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley

The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway

Murder on the Orient Express by Agatha Christie

Poe Party

13 books — 3 voters

The Complete Poems by Percy Bysshe Shelley

A Vindication of the Rights of Woman by Mary Wollstonecraft

The Truth Behind the Monster

43 books — 38 voters

Magnus, Robot Fighter 4000 A.D., Vol. 1 by Russ Manning

Attack on Titan Omnibus 1 by Hajime Isayama

Monster Hunters, Vampire Killers and Dragon Slayers In Comics Part III

100 books — 1 voter

Diverse Frankenstein Retellings

15 books — 6 voters

The Ultimate Frankenstein by Byron Preiss

The Frankenstein Omnibus by Peter Haining

The Rivals of Frankenstein by Michel Parry

Frankenstein in Baghdad by Ahmed Saadawi

Frankensteinia

100 books — 11 voters

Love, Sex & Frankenstein by Caroline Lea

The Monsters We Deserve by Marcus Sedgwick

Mary Shelley in Fiction

48 books — 10 voters

Related Genres

Horror
Hoŕror
Mary Wollstonecraft
Percy Bysshe Shelley
William Godwin

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Quotes Tagged “Mary Shelley”

“ Why did I not die? More miserable than man ever was before, why did I not sink into forgetfulness and rest? Death snatches away many blooming children, the only hopes of their doting parents: how many brides and youthful lovers have been one day in the bloom of health and hope, and the next a prey for worms and the decay of the tomb! Of what materials was I made, that I could thus resist so many shocks, which, like the turning of the wheel, continually renewed the torture? ”
― Mary shelley, Frankenstein

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“ From you only could I hope for succour, although towards you I felt no sentiment but that of hatred. Unfeeling, heartless creator! You had endowed me with perceptions and passions and then cast me abroad an object for the scorn and horror of mankind. ”
― Mary Shelley, Frankenstein

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