![]() ![]() He was cremated on the beach with select portions of his remains taken as mementos by Mary and his close friends. Ten days after the storm, his body washed up on the shore. Waiting anxiously for any correspondence to indicate that all was well, Mary felt the specter of death hover over her once more. In the midst of Percy’s return from a trip down the coast, there was a violent storm. In response, he chose to pursue a relationship with Claire and to spend the remainder of his free time with his new sailboat. Mary was so horrified by the news that she had a miscarriage, which prompted her to once again withdraw from Percy. It was here that Percy revealed to her that Claire’s child, sent to live in a convent by Byron, had died from typhus. ![]() In the summer of 1822, Mary Shelley moved with her husband and her stepsister to an isolated villa near the sea. However, he was so disturbed by the theme (a father’s incestuous love for his daughter) that he refused and the work was only published posthumously in 1959. She sent the completed manuscript to her father with the hope that he would praise it and submit it for publication. Her first longer work after Frankenstein was a Gothic novella called Mathilda, which she worked on from August 1819 to February 1820. Her relationship with Percy, already strained due to their financial insecurity and his womanizing, could offer her no comfort. During this time, she focused entirely on her writing as her only source of solace. This, combined with the loss of her third child Clara just a few weeks after birth, threw Mary into an even deeper state of depression. Mary’s second child, a boy named William Shelley, contracted malaria and died in 1819. Their time in Italy was comprised of both light and darkness. Facing the very real threats of prison and the potential loss of their remaining children, the Shelleys and Claire decided to move to Italy. Her stepsister Claire was now pregnant with Byron’s illegitimate child. Percy, having run through most of his funds, was in danger of being sent to debtor’s prison. Despite this, it sold extremely well and gave Mary ample motivation to continue writing.ĭuring this time, Mary Shelley’s life was in a constant state of upheaval. ![]() Initially titled Frankenstein or, the Modern Prometheus, it was published in January 1818 with a small run of only 500 copies. Due to her gender and the nature of the work, she chose to publish anonymously to avoid censure. During their stay at Byron’s estate in Geneva, an eerie incident gave Mary the inspiration she needed to start work on her most famous novel, Frankenstein.Īfter a year of feverish work, she finished writing her story in May 1817. Her first published work was a travel narrative, History of a Six Week’s Tour, which detailed two journeys that the couple took: one to Europe in 1814 and another to Geneva in 1816. During this time, Mary returned to writing. In an effort to repair relationships with family members, the couple decided to marry in 1816. In a deep depression, she withdrew from Percy and began to ruminate on what would become the theme of her greatest work: the idea of bringing the dead back to life. The greatest tragedy, however, came when her first child was born prematurely and died on February 22nd, 1815. For the next two years, Mary suffered greatly as she endured poverty and ostracism from society due to her relationship with Percy. Her stepsister, Claire Clairmont, accompanied them. ![]() What followed was a tumultuous affair that resulted in Percy leaving his wife and Mary running away from her father. When she was seventeen years old, Mary met Percy Shelley. Throughout her childhood and adolescence, she kept a journal in which she composed short stories about the grounds of her father’s estate and philosophical concepts from her education. Despite this, she distinguished herself by her thirst for knowledge and her love of writing. Raised by her father and a stepmother that she was not fond of, Mary’s early years were dark and lonely ones. Her mother, a renowned philosopher and feminist, died only a month after her birth. Mary Shelley was born on August 30th, 1797, to Mary Wollstonecraft and William Godwin. ![]()
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