Mary Shelley

Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley was most famously known for her novel Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus. Born Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin, she was the only daughter of William Godwin and Mary Wollstonecraft, both famous authors in their own rights. Her mother died from complications at birth, and she was raised by her father and stepmother, Mary Jane Clairmont. She never got along with her stepmother, believing that she had taken her father's affection away.

She never attended school, but nonetheless received a decent education. She learned to read and had access to her father's extensive library. She would often listen to discussions he would have with famous literary and scientific figures of the time. Notably, she heard Coleridge himself recite The Rime of the Ancient Mariner one time when came for dinner.

Mary described herself as cinderella, deprived by her wicked stepmother of both motherly love and fatherly understanding. As tensions in the household increased, Mary was sent to stay for extended visits with friends and relatives.

In 1814, she met the enthusiastic young idealist, Percy Shelly. The entire family had become obsessed with him by that time, and Mary too found him irresistible. Within 2 months they had declared their love for each other. When her affair with the married young Shelley was discovered, the two of them, along with Jane Clairmont, fled to France.

When they moved from Paris to Uri, Mary's box of papers were left behind with instructions for forwarding them. She never saw it again. Despite this devastating setback, Mary kept a thorough journal which later became the basis for the published account of their journey, History of A Six Weeks Tour through a part of France, Switzerland, Germany, and Holland, with Letters descriptive of a Sail round the Lake of Geneva, and of the Glaciers of Chamouni.

In 1815, Mary gave birth to her first child, a daughter, who died within a month. This deeply psychological event caused her much anxiety, and she wrote in her journal about a recurring dream she had a week later. "Dream that my little baby came to life again; that it had only been cold, and that we rubbed it before the fire, and it lived. Awake and find no baby. I think about the little thing all day. Not in good spirits." Percy, on the other hand seemed particularly unconcerned with his girl child's death, going out and leaving Mary alone the very next day. This was a pattern that would continue for the rest of his life.

After she had birthed her son William, the Shelleys traveled to Switzerland with Jane (who had changed her name to Claire) to see Byron. It was during this stay near Lake Geneva that Mary Shelley first conceived her waking dream. "I saw the pale student of unhallowed arts kneeling beside the thing he had put together. I saw the hideous phantasm of a man stretched out, and then, on the working of some powerful engine, show signs of life, and stir with and easy, half vital motion." It was from this vision that her novel Frankenstein was conceived.

The novel examines birth and creation, criticizing men for their lack of maternal loyalty. Much of the story is based on her life, her reading, and the discussions of science and literature going on around her.