Mary
Wollstonecraft Shelley, born in London on August 30, 1797, to feminist Mary
Wollstonecraft and William Godwin, moved in the most radical literary circles
of her day. At sixteen, she became the mistress of the poet Percy Shelley and a
close personal friend of George Gordon, Lord Byron. The death of her mother
when she was ten days old haunted her all her life. Mary Godwin, as the
daughter of two intellectuals, was well educated and self-taught, able to hold
her own against some of the best minds of her time. In the summer of 1816, Mary
Godwin, her lover Percy, and her stepsister Claire traveled to Switzerland,
where they took up residence near Lord Byron on Lake Geneva. It was here that
the well-known ghost story competition among the young literati produced Mary
Shelley’s best-known novel, Frankenstein. In December of 1816, Percy
Shelley and Mary Godwin married. Six years later, Percy Shelley died by
drowning in the Ligurian Sea. Mary Shelley died in London from a brain tumor on
February 1, 1851. Her work continues to exert influence on contemporary fiction
and criticism.
Frankenstein
Mary Shelley
The Creature
