Percy Seymour

Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley (1797-1851) was an English novelist best known for her Gothic novel *Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus*, considered an early science fiction work. Born to prominent philosophers Mary Wollstonecraft and William Godwin, her mother died shortly after her birth. Shelley was raised by her father, who provided an informal but extensive education, exposing her to his anarchist political theories and a circle of intellectuals. Her life was marked by personal tragedy, including the deaths of children and the drowning of her husband, the Romantic poet Percy Bysshe Shelley, whom she married after eloping with him while he was already married.

Shelley also edited and promoted her husband's works. Her own literary output, beyond *Frankenstein*, includes historical novels like *Valperga* and *Perkin Warbeck*, the apocalyptic *The Last Man*, and other novels and biographical articles. Recent scholarship highlights her broader literary achievements and suggests her works consistently advocated for cooperation and sympathy as means to reform society, challenging both Romantic individualism and Enlightenment rationalism. She faced illness in the latter part of her life, succumbing to a brain tumor at 53.

Mary Shelley was born into a highly intellectual environment. Her mother was the pioneering feminist philosopher Mary Wollstonecraft, and her father was the influential philosopher and novelist William Godwin. Though her mother died soon after her birth, her father took on her upbringing and education. He provided her with a rich, informal education, drawing from his own library and the many intellectuals who frequented their home. This exposure, combined with her father's encouragement of his anarchist political theories, shaped her early intellectual development. Despite receiving little formal schooling, she was tutored extensively and had access to advanced readings, fostering a keen intellect from a young age.

Shelley's most famous work, *Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus*, is considered a seminal Gothic novel and an early example of science fiction. Her literary output, however, extended beyond this single iconic work. She authored several other novels, including the historical works *Valperga* and *Perkin Warbeck*, the prophetic *The Last Man*, and *Lodore* and *Falkner*. She also produced travel writing and biographical articles. Scholarship increasingly recognizes her substantial literary contributions, moving beyond her initial fame for *Frankenstein* and her efforts to promote her husband Percy Bysshe Shelley's work. Her writings often explored themes of cooperation and sympathy, particularly within the domestic sphere, offering a critique of both the individualistic Romantic ethos and the rationalist philosophies of the Enlightenment.

Mary Shelley's personal life was deeply intertwined with the Romantic literary and philosophical circles of her time. At sixteen, she began a romance with Percy Bysshe Shelley, a married poet and follower of her father's political ideas. They eloped to Europe with her stepsister, Claire Clairmont, facing significant hardship, ostracism, and debt. After the suicide of Percy Shelley's first wife, they married. The couple, along with Lord Byron and John William Polidori, famously spent a summer near Geneva, where the idea for *Frankenstein* emerged. Her life was further marked by the deaths of several children and the tragic drowning of her husband in 1822. After returning to England, she dedicated herself to raising their surviving son and to her writing career.

“I wrote then—but in a most common-place style. It was beneath the trees of the grounds belonging to our house, or on the bleak sides of the woodless mountains near, that my true compositions, the airy flights of my imagination, were born and fostered.”

“It was acting in a novel, being an incarnate romance”