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Biography
Mary Shelley was born on August 30, 1797, in London. Her mother, Mary Wollstonecraft, who died in childbirth, was one of the
first feminists. Her father was the writer and political journalist William Godwin.
In her childhood Mary Shelley was left to educate herself amongst her father's intellectual circle. She published her first
poem at the age of ten. At the age of 16 she ran away to France and Switzerland with the poet Percy Shelley. They married in
1816 after Shelley's first wife had committed suicide by drowning. Their first child, a daughter, died in Venice, Italy, a
few years later. Thereafter they returned to England and Mary gave birth to a son, William.
In 1818 the Shelleys left England for Italy, where they remained until Shelley's death - he drowned in 1822 in the Bay of
Spezia near Livorno. In 1819 Mary suffered a nervous breakdown after the death of William - she had also lost a daughter the
previous year. In 1822 she had a dangerous miscarriage. Of their children only one, Percy Florence, survived infancy. In
1823 she returned with her son to England, determined not to-re-marry. She devoted herself to his welfare and education and
continued her career as a professional writer.
Mary Shelley died in London on February 1, 1851, probably of a brain tumor.
Her novels
History Of Six Weeks' Tour (1817)
Frankenstein (1818): http://www.literature.org/authors/shelley-mary/frankenstein
Lodore (1835)
Faulkner (1937)
Mathilde (1819, published 1959)
Valperga (1823): http://www.bibliomania.com/0/0/43/2398/frameset.html
The Last Man (1826): http://www.underthesun.cc/Classics/Shelley/lastman
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