Mary Shelley, born as Mary Wallstonecraft, was the daughter of William Godwin and Mary Wallstonecraft. Her father was a philosopher and political writer while her mother was a well-known feminist, who penned the book The Vindication of the Rights of Women in 1792. Unfortunately Shelley would suffer much loss throughout her life, starting with her mother who passed shortly after Mary was born.
Godwin remarried and the new stepmother and Mary did not get along well. She saw no reason to educate Mary, but shipped her biological daughter Jane (later known as Claire) off to school. None of this stopped Mary from learning, especially in regards to reading and writing. She would often lose herself in books in her father's massive library or take a book and read it beside her mother's grave. She also enjoyed writing poems and stories, with her father's company publishing her first poem, "Mounseer Nongtongpaw" in 1807.
In 1814, Mary started seeing a man named Percy Shelley, who was a follower of her father's philosophical teachings, a poet, and...still married when they entered their relationship together. Later that year Mary, Percy, and Claire all fled to England, an event which alienated them all from Godwin. in 1815, Mary and Percy lost their first child. A year later the three musketeers (Mary, Percy, and Claire) were in Switzerland with Lord Byron and John Polidori. A rainy day kept them inside during their visit and to pass the time they read a book of ghost stories. It was Lord Byron that suggested they all try their hand at writing a horror story and thus Mary's wheels started turning for her famed novel, Frankenstein, or the Modern Prometheus. Later that year, Mary would lose her half-sister Fanny to suicide with Percy's wife following suit shortly after that. The silver lining in the latter is that Mary and Percy could finally get married.
Mary published a travelogue in 1817 that detailed their journey to Europe called, History of a Six Weeks Tour, meanwhile she was still toiling away on Frankenstein. A year later in 1818, Frankenstein would finally be published but as an anonymous author. Percy Shelley, having written the introduction, was assumed to be the writer for a time. Inspired by Luigi Galvani's experiments, Frankenstein explores that along with the consequences of having great wealth AND power with regards to how destructive it can be. Impressively, she was only 19 when she wrote the novel.
Later in 1818 the Shelley's moved to Italy. But everything in the marriage was not bellissimo, as it was plagued with infidelity and the loss of 2 more children. In fact, they only had one child survive until adulthood, Percy Florence. Then in 1822, when Mary was only 24 years old, she became a widow when Percy drowned.
After Percy's death, Mary devoted herself to preserving her husband's legacy and his contribution to the literary world by promoting his poetry. She would continue to write and publish her own stories and poems as well including Valperga in 1823, The Last Man in 1826, and Lodore in 1835. She passed in 1851, and 100 years or so later in the 1950's, her novel Mathilda was released.
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