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Mary Shelley was born in London on August 30, 1797. She was the
only child of
Mary
Wollstonecraft, an early feminist, and
William
Godwin, a radical philosopher and novelist. She was the wife
and lover of
Percy
Bysshe Shelley.
Mary was born during the eigth 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. 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,
the great English essayist, 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 genuis 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 liasion 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. (Therir
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 in a boating
accident near Livorno, Italy, leaving her penniless with a two
year old son.
For her remaining twenty-nine years she engaged in a struggle
with the internal and external punishments consequent 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 was
not a reflection of her courage and integrity but derived from the
"punishments" placed on her by society.
Mary became an invalid at the age of forty-eight. She died at
age 54 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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