Mary Shelley, born August 30, 1797, was a
prominent, though often overlooked, literary
figure during the Romantic Era of English
Literature. She was the only child of Mary
Wollstonecraft, the famous feminist, and William
Godwin, a philosopher and novelist. She was also
the wife of the poet Percy Bysshe Shelley. Mary's
parents were shapers of the Romantic sensibility
and the revolutionary ideas of the left wing.
Mary, Shelley, Byron, and Keats were principle
figures in Romanticism's second generation.
Whereas the poets died young in the 1820's,
Mary lived through the Romantic era into the
Victorian.
Mary was born during the eighth year of the
French Revolution. "She entered the world like
the heroine of a Gothic tale: conceived in a
secret amour, her birth heralded by storms
and portents, attended by tragic drama, and known to
thousands through Godwin's memoirs. Percy
Shelley would elevate the event to mythic status
in his Dedication to The Revolt of Islam" .( from
pg. 21 of Romance and Reality by Emily
Sunstein.) From infancy, Mary was treated as a
unique individual with remarkable parents. High
expectations were placed on her potential and she
was treated as if she were born beneath a lucky
star. Godwin was convinced that babies are born
with a potential waiting to be developed. From an
early age she was surrounded by famous
philosophers, writers, and poets: Coleridge made
his first visit when Mary was two years old.
Charles Lamb was also a frequent visitor.
A peculiar sort of Gothicism was part of Mary's
earliest existence. Most every day she would go
for a walk with her father to the St. Pancras
churchyard where her mother was buried. Godwin
taught Mary to read and spell her name by
having her trace her mother's inscription on the
stone.
At the age of sixteen Mary ran away to live with
the twenty-one year old Percy Shelley, the
unhappily married radical heir to a wealthy
baronetcy. To Mary, Shelley personified the
genius and dedication to human betterment that
she had admired her entire life. Although she was
cast out of society, even by her father, this
inspirational liaison produced her masterpiece,
Frankenstein.
She conceived of Frankenstein during one of the
most famous house parties in literary history
when staying at Lake Geneva in Switzerland with
Byron and Shelley. Interestingly enough, she was
only nineteen at the time. She wrote the novel
while being overwhelmed by a series of calamities
in her life. The worst of these were the suicides of
her half-sister, Fanny Imlay, and Shelly's wife,
Harriet.
After the suicides, Mary and Shelley, reluctantly
married. Fierce public hostility toward the couple
drove them to Italy. Initially, they were happy in
Italy, but their two young children died there.
Mary never fully recovered from this trauma.
(Their first child had died shortly after birth early
in their relationship.) Nevertheless, Shelley
empowered Mary to live as she most desired: to
enjoy intellectual and artistic growth, love, and
freedom.
When Mary was only twenty-four Percy
drowned, leaving her penniless with a two year
old son.
For her remaining twenty-nine years she engaged
in a struggle with the societal disapproval of her
relationship with Shelley. Poverty forced her to
live in England which she despised because of
the morality and social system. She was shunned
by conventional circles and worked as a
professional writer to support her father and her
son. Her circle, however, included literary and
theatrical figures, artists, and politicians.
She eventually came to more traditional views of
women's dependence and differences, like her
mother before her. This not a reflection of her
courage and integrity but derived from
socialization and the conventions placed on her
by society.
Mary became an invalid at the age of forty-eight.
She died in 1851 of a brain tumor with poetic
timing. The Great Exhibition, which was a
showcase of technological progress, was opened.
This was the same scientific technology that she
had warned against in her most famous book,
Frankenstein.
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