Mary Shelley: Frankenstein
Christina Weigand
Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley was born to Mary Wollstonecraft
and William Godwin on August 30, 1797 in Somers Town, London. Her mother, a
feminist, philosopher, educator and writer died a month after Mary was born and
her father, a philosopher, novelist and journalist was left to raise Mary and
her half-sister Fanny Imlay. Mary’s mother left her a legacy of feminist ideas
that were scandalous in the eighteenth century. Mary to some degree followed
her mother’s teachings and actions throughout her own life.
Although William Godwin was almost always deeply in debt
during Mary’s childhood he managed to provide his daughters with a rich, if
informal, education encouraging her to adhere to his anarchist political
theories. In December 1801, when Mary was four years old Godwin married a woman
with two young children of her own. Mary quickly came to detest the woman as
she felt as if the new wife favored her own children.
In June 1812 Godwin sent Mary to stay with a family in
Scotland. Mary rejoiced in her spacious surroundings as well as the four
daughters of her host. She returned to stay with the family for another 10
months the next summer where she credits the trees of the grounds and the bleak
sides of the woodless mountains for giving birth to her airy flights of
imagination.
Somewhere between 1813 and 1814 she met Percy Bysshe
Shelley.
Percy was estranged from his wife and spent a great deal of time at
the Godwin’s. Percy had agreed to bail Mary’s father out of debt. He had been
alienated from his wealthy family for following the economic views which he had
learned from Godwin’s
Political Justice.
Eventually Percy told Godwin that he could not pay of the debts.
Mary and Percy had begun meeting secretly at her mother’s
grave and fell in love. She was nearly 17 and he nearly 22. On June 26 1814
they declared their love for each other. Unfortunately because of Percy’s not
being able to pay Godwin’s debts, Godwin disapproved of the relationship. The
couple proceeded to run away to France taking Mary’s stepsister with them.
The trio travelled by donkey, mule and carriage through war
ravaged France into Switzerland. When they reached Lucerne, due to lack of
money they were forced to turn back and arrived in Gravesend, Kent on September
13, 1814.
Sometime during their journey Mary became pregnant and
penniless. Mary’s father refused to have anything to do with her. February 1815
she gave birth to a two months premature baby girl. After the death of her
child she was haunted by nightmares and became severely depressed, but did
conceive again by summer.
With an upturn in their finances the trio rented a cottage
at Bishopsgate. In January 1816 she gave birth to her second child. In May of
that same year the trio travelled to Geneva to spend the summer with Lord
Byron, as they believed that Claire was pregnant with Lord Byron’s child.
It is on this trip that the challenge of writing a ghost
story was presented and Frankenstein was born. It started out as a short story,
but Percy encouraged her to expand it into her first novel: Frankenstein; or The Modern Prometheus.
Once they returned to England, they got word that both Mary’s
half sister Fanny and Percy’s wife committed suicide. In an effort
to gain custody of Percy’s children by his first wife, Mary and Percy finally
wed. Unfortunately they did not get custody of the children. In January Claire
gave birth to a girl and in September Mary gave birth to a girl. Summer of 1817
Mary finished Frankenstein and in
1818 it was published anonymously and everyone assumed that Percy had written
it since he was known to have contributed to it and wrote the preface to the
first edition. Differences were discovered in the two later editions that in
some people’s minds supported this claim.
Living in fear of debtors and losing their children, the
Shelly’s moved to Italy in March 1818.
Mary lost both of her children, her daughter in 1818 and her
son in 1819. She spiraled into a deep depression and isolated herself from
Percy. Her only comfort was her writing and the birth of her fourth child in
late 1819.
The Percy’s celebrated political freedoms that were
unattainable in England. While here she experienced a great time of creative
activity writing the novels Matilda, and
Valperga, along with the plays Proserpine and Midas.
In summer of 1822 a pregnant Mary moved to an isolated villa
on the edge of the Bay of Lerici. She lost her baby and almost her life when
she miscarried. Percy and Mary’s relationship was strained and he spent time
with other women or sailing in the bay. Percy was killed in a sailing accident
on July 8.
For the rest of her life Mary returned to England and
resolved to live by her pen and for her only remaining son. For a short time
she lived with her father and step-mother until her father-in-law agreed to a
small stipend for her son.
She continued to write, editing the poems of Lord Byron and
Percy. In 1824 she wrote The Last Man and
assisted friends in writing memoirs of Byron and Percy.
Between 1827—40 she wrote the novels: The Fortunes of Perkin Warbeck, Lodore, and Falkner.
She contributed to five volumes about Spanish, Portuguese
and French authors as well as writing stories for woman’s magazines and helping
to support her father’s publishing endeavors. She sold the copywright to a new
addition of Frankenstein. She
attempted to assemble her father’s letters and memoir, but after two years of
work abandoned the project.
In 1837 a publisher proposed publishing a collected works of
Percy Shelley and Mary edited it. Her father-in-law insisted that there be no
biography of Percy so Mary found a way to tell the story of his life with
extensive biographical notes about the poems.
Other men came and left her life, but she never remarried as
her first concern was her son. In 1840 and 1842 mother and son travelled
together on the continent and Mary recorded their journeys in Rambles in Germany and Italy in 1840, 1842
and 1843.
When her father-in-law died
in 1844 she and her son were finally financially independent. In 1848 her son
married and she continued to live with him and his wife for the rest of her
life. On February 1, 1851 she died from a brain tumor
Photos and Biography Courtesy of:
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