Mary Shelley was born in 1796, the daughter of literary and influential parents. William Godwin was a philosopher, and Mary Wollstonecraft was a novelist, reformer, and one of the first feminists. Mary Shelley never got to meet her mother, since she died ten days after giving birth to her. Wollstonecraft survived a long and painful labor, but when the placenta wouldn’t expel from the womb, it was surgically removed, resulting in an infection that killed her.
Mary Shelley’s father was lost after the death of her mother, then remarried four years later. Mary led a rather solitary life, never feeling like she completely fit in anywhere. She would make pilgrimages to her mother’s grave, and after she met Percy Shelley who she would later marry, they would visit the gravesite together.
When she met Percy Shelley, they instantly fell in love, although there was one problem. Percy was married to someone else. Percy believed that love took precedence, though, and they ran away together when Mary was 16 years old. She was soon pregnant, but gave birth to a stillborn. She gave birth to William the following year, and she and Percy traveled to Geneva to visit their friend, Lord Byron.
It rained a lot that summer in Geneva, and they read ghost stories to each other, until Bryon suggested they all write their own ghost story. Mary couldn’t come up with one, until she had a dream one night of a man leaning over his hideous creation that he’d brought to life. Percy told her to write the dream, and she penned Frankenstein by the following year. She also gave birth to Clara that year. She published Frankenstein anonymously, and it did quite well.
Meanwhile, her life began to fall apart. She lost both William and Clara to illnesses within a year of each other. She gave birth to Percy, her only child to make it to adulthood. She then barely survived a miscarriage, and shortly after her recovery from it, her husband Percy died in a boating accident. John Keats, their good friend, died the following year. And, Byron died two years after that. From that time on, Mary lived a quiet life with her son, and died at 54 years old of a brain tumor.
Although I will always be in awe of Frankenstein, especially the 1818 version (she released a major revision of the novel in 1831 that seems more guarded in its presentation than the original), I also like her later novels, which are not as well known since they are heavily overshadowed by Frankenstein. Frankenstein is of course the brilliant novel of a man who discovers a way to create life and brings to life a creature who is hideous in appearance. The creature is intelligent and benevolent, but he becomes vengeful and dangerous when he realizes he will never experience love or human compassion due to his appearance.
Her novel, The Last Man, is about a plague that kills everyone in the world, leaving only one man who survives. This novel reflects the way Mary Shelley felt about being left to survive alone without so many that she loved. The Last Man is intricately written and often overlooked, but it’s a novel that people could relate to more than they realize on many different levels. I recommend reading Mary Shelley’s lesser known novels, as well as reading the 1818 version of Frankenstein. They are all fascinating texts.
Mary Shelley mostly wanted to live a normal, average life, but that’s not what life had in store for her. As sorry as I feel for all that she was forced to endure, I’m grateful that life had its own plan for her.
