Mary Shelley

One of the most well-known work by English Romantic author Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley (1797-1851) is the Gothic classic Frankenstein. What eventually became one of the most well-known monsters in the West was created thanks to this book.

Born in London, England, on August 30, 1797, Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin was the sole child of feminist Mary Wollstonecraft and social philosopher William Godwin. In the spring of 1814, she went to France on an elopement with younger poet Percy Bysshe Shelley. Following the suicide of Shelley's first wife, the two were wed in 1816.

According to reports, Mary Shelley met Percy Shelley's criteria for his ideal life partner- "one who can relate to poetry and understand philosophy"- better than any other lady. Following the demise of her spouse in 1822, she went back to England and committed herself to promoting Shelley's compositions and raising their lone living child, Percy Florence Shelley. Her late husband's posthumous poems were published in 1824, and she also edited his prose pieces and Poetical Works (1839), which included extensive and priceless comments. Her letters and journals are excellent sources of biographical details.

The Modern Prometheus, often known as Frankenstein (1818), is Mary Shelley's best-known book. In it, she describes the terrible outcomes that follow a scientist's attempt to create a human being artificially. The book is a member of the modern Gothic literary movement, which primarily employed horror as a device. It provided an ideal environment for Romantic themes like the embodied alter ego and the link between science and humanity. A monster akin to the one in this book appeared in a number of well-known American horror films from the 1930s.

Though Mary Shelley published a number of other novels, including Valperga (1823), The Fortunes of Perkin Warbeck (1830), Lodore (1835), & Falkner (1837), her best-known work is still The Last Man (1826), which describes how a plague will eventually wipe off humanity. In her travelogue History of a Six Weeks' Tour (1817), she first narrates her and Shelley's 1814 continental tour after their elopement, and then she recalls their summer spent in the vicinity of Geneva in 1816. Mary Shelley passed away on February 1, 1851, in London.

Early Life

Mary Shelley was born on August 30, 1797, in London. She came from a respectable household because both of her parents were well-known Enlightenment activists. Her mother, Mary Wollstonecraft, is renowned for penning the seminal feminist work "A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792)", which interprets women's "inferiority" as a direct result of their lack of education. Her father, William Godwin, wrote political novels and was equally well-known for the anarchist Enquiry Concerning Political Justice (1793) as well as Caleb Williams (1794) , which is credited with being the first fictive thriller. Days after delivering birth to her daughter, Wollstonecraft passed away on September 10, 1797, leaving Godwin to care for the child and her three-year-old half-sister, Fanny Imlay, who was the product of Wollstonecraft's liaison with American novelist and merchant Gilbert Imlay.

Throughout her life, Mary's parents their intellectual legacy would prove to be extremely influential. Mary was deeply influenced by Wollstonecraft even if her mother was not around because she was raised to respect her and her work.

Godwin's widowhood did not last long. Mary's father remarried Mrs. Mary Jane Clairmont, his neighbor when she was four years old. She travelled with her two kids, Charles and Jane, and in 1803 she delivered birth to a son, William. Mrs. Clairmont and Mary weren't able to get along because of Mary's strong bond with her father and her resemblance to her mother. The summer of 1812 saw Mrs. Clairmont send her stepdaughter to Scotland, supposedly for her health. Mary stayed there for about two years. Despite being in a state of exile, she flourished in Scotland. She would later remark that her creativity was formed in the countryside and that she had the chance to indulge in her artistic abilities there during her free time.

As was typical in the early 1800s, Mary did not have a demanding or regimented schooling as a young girl. In 1811, she attended Miss Pettman's Ladies' School in Ramsgate for a mere six months. But Mary's father had given her an advanced, informal education. The study chemist Sir Humphry Davy, the Quaker social reformer Robert Owen, as well as the poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge were among the many notable people who visited the Godwin home. She attended classes at home, perused Godwin's library, and would have been privy to the intellectual discussions of these individuals.

In November of 1812, Mary had her first encounter with the poet Percy Bysshe Shelley while returning to England. The relationship between Godwin and Shelley was intellectual but transactional: Godwin, who was always financially strapped, served as Shelley's tutor in exchange for Shelley's financial support. After releasing the pamphlet "The Necessity of Atheism", Shelley and his friend Thomas Jefferson Hogg were dismissed from Oxford and became separated from their families. He was so impressed with Godwin's political and philosophical views that he set out to find him.

Mary was once again introduced to Shelley two years after she departed for Scotland and returned to England. She was nearly seventeen years old in March of 1814. He had been happily married to Harriet Westbrook for almost three years and was five years her senior. Shelley grew close to Mary despite his married ties, and he fell deeply in love. Mary would frequently go to her mother's grave to read by herself so that they would meet there in secret. If she didn't feel the same way about him, Shelley threatened to take her own life.

Mary first laid eyes on Percy Shelley at the age of seventeen. A turbulent relationship ensued, leading to Percy divorcing his wife Mary escaping her father. Claire Clairmont, her stepsister, went with them. Because of her relationship with Percy, Mary suffered significantly for the next two years, going through poverty and social exclusion. The worst sorrow, though, occurred on February 22, 1815, when her firstborn son was born prematurely passed away. She retreated from Percy and fell into deep despair, reflecting on the idea of resurrecting the dead, which would later come to dominate her best-known works.

Richard Rothwell's portrait of Mary Shelley, sourced from Wikimedia Commons. The two chose to get married in 1816 in an attempt to mend fences with relatives. Mary went back to her writing at this period. Her initial published piece was a travelogue titled "History of a Six-Week Tour", which described the couple's two trips: one in 1814 to Europe and another in 1816 to Geneva. An unsettling incident that occurred when they were staying at Byron's home in Geneva provided Mary with the impetus to begin writing Frankenstein, her most well-known book.

In May of 1817, she completed her story after an entire year of intense work. She decided to publish anonymously because of her gender the nature of the work in order to avoid criticism. Frankenstein, or the Modern Prometheus, was its original title, and it was first published in January 1818 in a limited edition of 500 copies. It sold incredibly well in spite of this, which encouraged Mary to keep writing.

Mary Shelley's life was constantly turbulent throughout this period. After depleting the majority of his funds, Percy faced the possibility of being taken to a debtor's prison. Byron's illegitimate child was now expected to be born to her stepsister Claire. The Shelleys Claire decided to relocate to Italy in response to the very real fear of going to prison and the possibility of losing their surviving children.

There was light and gloom during their stay in Italy. William Shelley, Mary's second child, died in 1819 after contracting malaria. This sent Mary into a significantly deeper melancholy, compounded by the death of her third child, Clara, a few weeks after she was born. She turned all of her attention to her writing during this time since it was her sole comfort. She could find no solace in her marriage with Percy, which was already tense because of their unstable finances and his infidelity.

Mathilda, a Gothic novella, was her first longer piece following Frankenstein, which she worked on from August 1819 until February 1820. She hoped her father would read the finished work, give it his blessing, and present it for publication. He declined, though, because the work's theme-a father's incestuous love for his daughter-so troubled him. As a result, it wasn't until 1959 that the piece was published posthumously.

Mary Shelley relocated to a remote villa close to the sea in the summer of 1822 with her spouse and stepsister. Here, Percy informed her that Claire's child, whom Byron had sent to live in a convent, had passed away from typhus. Mary withdrew from Percy once again after learning of her miscarriage, which shocked her to no end. As a reaction, he decided to go for a romantic relationship with Claire and to spend the rest of his leisure time aboard his new sailboat. There was a strong storm while Percy was returning from a trip down the coast. Mary felt death's shadow cast over her again, waiting tensely for any letter to say that all was OK. His body washed up on the coast ten days after the storm. Mary his close friends took some of his remains as mementos after his cremation on the beach. Mary then decided to rely solely on her writing career to support herself and her young son, Percy Florence.

She produced four novels, edited Percy's poems, and sent short pieces to magazines during the following 20 years.

• The earliest of them, The Last Man, came out in 1826 and told the story of a world where a plague had nearly destroyed all life.
• The Fortunes of Perkin Warbeck, her second book, was historical fiction written in the context of the War of the Roses.
• In her third book, Lodore, the wife and daughter of Lord Lodore, fight to survive after his passing, illuminating the difficult position of women in a patriarchal culture.
• Falkner, her fourth book, delves deeper into the issue of family as the protagonist works to reconcile her father the guy she loves.

She went back to Frankenstein in 1831 and published the version that is still in use today. She made a lot of adjustments in an attempt to make her work less contentious and more palatable for the general public. One obvious difference is that instead of having free agency, the characters are now shown as victims of fate. She also modified certain contentious aspects, such as the fact that Elizabeth, Victor's love interest, is his blood relative.

Mary Shelley's health deteriorated further throughout the final ten years of her life. Incapacitating headaches and physical immobility primarily caused her inability to read and write. Her final work to be published was a travelogue titled Rambles in Italy and Germany, which described a trip she did with her son his university pals. At the age of 51, she passed away on February 1, 1851, and was laid to rest in St. Peter's Church in Bournemouth.

Despite the tragedies that plagued her life, she is remembered for her vast literary legacy. She emphasized the value of compassion and teamwork throughout her writing career in order to build the finest possible world. Frankenstein, her most well-known creation, eloquently captures the obligation we have as human beings to take care of ourselves, those around us, and whatever we decide to bring into this world. These factors ensure that Mary Shelley's writing will be cherished for many decades to come.

Literary Style and Themes

Literary Pioneer

With Frankenstein, Mary Shelley successfully invented a new genre: science fiction. The fusion of the already-established Gothic heritage with Romantic writing and contemporary issues-namely, the Enlightenment thinkers' scientific ideals-was revolutionary. Her writing is always political, Frankenstein is no different as it reflects Godwinian radicalism. Frankenstein is still a key figure in contemporary cultural mythology today because of its enduring themes of hubris, problems of societal advancement as well as aspiration, with the visceral manifestation of the sublime.

As the first apocalyptic novel written in English, Mary's third book, The Last Man, was equally groundbreaking and far ahead of its time. It centers on the final guy living in a devastated world after a pandemic. She addressed a number of serious societal concerns, including illness, the fallibility of human nature, and the failure of political aspirations. However, both her peers and contemporary critics thought it was too gloomy and negative. It was reissued and brought back to life in 1965 because its concerns were still pertinent.

Final Fictions

She wrote the books Perkin Warbeck (1830), Lodore (1835), & Falkner (1837) in order to support herself and her son. Mary Shelley persisted in delving deeper into the subjects that had long preoccupied her: the relationship between a person and history and the bond between daughters and dads. She describes the manner in which girls marry father figures and give in to the pressures of strong men in an attempt to break free from their reliance on their fathers. While idealizing the family as the only place a woman might find the affection and companionship she desired,

she repeatedly exposes the hierarchy latent in the bourgeois family.

According to Mary Shelley, the egalitarian family is the only social structure where strong husband-wife and parent-child bonds allow both men and women to experience emotional fulfillment. She believes that the foundation of a healthy body politic is an ethic of disinterested care, which such a loving family embodies. It is important to understand that Shelley emphasized that for a family to thrive, men must also play the role of the mother, a point she made clearest in Frankenstein and Lodore. Her books highlight the egalitarian bourgeois family and a caring ethic, but they also highlight the limitations of her worldview.

They constantly show how miserable a woman is when she sees her entire identity in terms of her relationships, including her family: either she experiences brutal abandonment, loses all sense of independence and self-worth, or loses the people she loves to illness and death. Mary Shelley admits that the equitable bourgeois family has never existed, despite her outward celebration of it. Her works could be more detailed on families like these.

Her long-term quest for an enjoyable family life still needs to be fulfilled. Although her remaining son was loyal to her, she didn't think much of him. Jane St. John, a young widow, was a suitable wife she found for him in 1848. Following their 1849 transfer to Field Place, the Shelley estate in Bournemouth, Sussex, she made sure that a shrine to Percy Shelley would always be maintained there. She passed away on February 1, 1851, from panic episodes that left her partially paralyzed.

Publication and Criticism

Frankenstein, also known as The Modern Prometheus, was originally published in January 1818 by a modest London publishing business. Shelley finished writing the book in May 1817. It was published secretly, with a preface penned by Percy specifically for Mary.

The majority of reviews for the book were negative, which was made worse by hazy conjecture about the author's identity-who wasn't exactly discreet. While most critics considered it "a tissue of horrible and disgusting absurdity," Walter Scott said, "Based on the whole, the piece impresses us with an elevated idea of the author's original genius as well as his power of expression" (Quarterly Review).

Frankenstein became a near-instant hit in spite of the negative reviews. The melodramatic theatrical versions were mostly responsible for its widespread recognition. In 1823, Mary Shelley saw a performance of Richard Brinsley Peake's play "The Fate of Frankenstein, or Presumption". As early as 1821, a translation into French was published.

August 1823 saw the publication of the second edition of Frankenstein in two volumes (by G. and W. B. Whittaker), with Mary Shelley being credited as the author this time. On October 31, 1831, the first edition of Frankenstein in one volume appeared, released by Henry Colburn and Richard Bentley. Mary Shelley made significant revisions to this edition, adding several religious and Christian elements not found in the original story, as well as a longer preface that presented an embellished version of the story's origins. This edition is the one that is currently read the most frequently, though editions with the original 1818 text are still being published.

The text now describes a kind creator who makes the monster only for scientific purposes, eliminating any hint that Frankenstein's monster was the product of vice. These are just two of the major changes made to the updated edition. Scholars concur that the 1818 version of the text is significantly more compelling in its moral complexity despite the fact that this version of the narrative is still published today. As a result, the 1818 version is primarily taught in higher education institutions.

Mary Shelley Quotes

Some of the popular quotes of Mary Shelly are;

• My fantasies were entirely mine; I told no one about them, and they served as both my haven when I was irritated and my greatest joy when I was free.
• It must be respectfully acknowledged that invention involves making order out of chaos rather than a vacuum.
• I saw life and death as perfect boundaries that I needed first to breach in order to unleash a flood of light upon our dark earth.
• Once again, my dreams were more delightful and imaginative than my words.
• I want women to be powerful over themselves, not over men.
• Mother Nature asked me to stop crying as the very winds whispered in calming tones.
• Every day is the beginning.
• I saw the wretch, the horrible creation of mine.

Conclusion

On August 30, 1797,Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin gave birth to Shelley in London, England. Her mother, feminist activist Mary Wollstonecraft, wrote "The Vindication of the Rights of Women:. Her father, political philosopher William Godwin, was the only child.

The most well-known work by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley is Frankenstein, or The Modern Prometheus (1818, revised 1831), a work that combines elements of a philosophical and Gothic romance. It is frequently cited as a pioneering work of science fiction.

Sadly, on February 1, 1851, Mary Shelley, then 53 years old, passed away from brain cancer. But in the 1950s, her novel Mathilde was eventually published almost a century after her death. Nonetheless, Mary Shelley's famous Frankenstein story continues to be her most well-known work today.