Mary Shelley

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Mary Shelley

• Frankenstein
• Mr. Raber
• Honors 12 English

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Mary Shelley
August 30, 1797-February 1, 1851
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Mother - Mary Wollstonecraft

• famed writer, educator and feminist
• A Vindication of the Rights of Women
• Argued that women are only inferior because of
  their lack of educational opportunities.
• She envisioned a society based on reason and
  rationality.

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Father William Godwin

• Anarchist
• Philosopher
• Novelist
• Journalist
• Atheist dissenter

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Growing Up The Stepmother

• Mother died 10 days after birth
• Father remarried Mary Jane Clairmont
• A shady character with 2 illegitimate children
• Educates her own 2 children better than Mary

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Education

• Governess Louisa Jones raised her during her
  early years
• Father
• Free access to his library
• Published her first piece at the age of 11
• Many famous guests visited her father

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Samuel Taylor Coleridge

• Mary and her stepsister once hid under the sofa
  to hear him recite his famous poem Rime of the
  Ancient Mariner.
• This poem later influenced her as she wrote
  Frankenstein.

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Percy Shelley

• Godwins frequent visitor
• Married to Harriet Shelley
• Well-known romantic poet and lyricist

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The Scandal

• Percy fell deeply in love with Mary
  Wollstonecraft-Godwin. They ran away together
  while Percys wife was pregnant with his child.
  After the childs birth, Harriet Shelley
  committed suicide in a lake in London. Mary and
  Percy married three weeks later.

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Romantic Beyond Romance

• Traveled - Italy
• Switzerland, Germany,
• Studied literature, language, music art

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Always a Dark Side

• Percy
• Narcissistic (excessive self-love)
• Free love theory
• Affair with Marys stepsister Claire
• Mary
• 3 children in 5 years
• 2 die as infants, Will as a toddler
• Birth and death become primary thoughts in Marys
  mind

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Lord Byron

• Friend - Lord Byron
• As the result of an affair, fathered a child with
  Clair Clairmont
• Known for his Romantic Period poetry
• The Byronic hero

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The Challenge

• While vacationing in Switzerland with Lord
  Byron, the friends agreed to a story challenge.

Hollywoods Frankenstein
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FRANKENSTEIN

• My imagination, unbidden, possessed and
  guided me I saw the pale student of unhallowed
  arts kneeling beside the thing he had put
  togetherI saw the hideous phantasm of a man
  stretched out, and then, on the working of some
  powerful engine, show signs of life, and stir
  with an uneasy, half-vital.

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Interestingly.

• Mary titled the novel Frankenstein or the Modern
  Prometheus.
• She did not put her own name on the 1818 edition.
• Mary finally received credit when she wrote the
  introduction and published the 1831 edition.

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A Year of Tragedy

• In 1822
• Claires daughter dies at the convent where her
  father has sent her.
• Percy saves Mary from bleeding to death following
  a miscarriage.
• Caught in a storm, Percy dies while boating.

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• Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley died in 1851.