Mary Shelley

FrankensteinMr. RaberHonors 12 English

August 30, 1797-February 1, 1851

Mary Shelley

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.

Father – William Godwin

• Anarchist • Philosopher• Novelist • Journalist• Atheist dissenter

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

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

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.

Percy Shelley

• Godwin’s frequent visitor

• Married to Harriet Shelley

• Well-known romantic poet and lyricist

The Scandal

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

“Romantic Beyond Romance”

•Traveled - ItalySwitzerland, Germany, •Studied literature, language, music & art

Always a Dark Side

Percy • Narcissistic (excessive self-love)

• “Free love” theory • Affair with Mary’s stepsister Claire Mary• 3 children in 5 years • 2 die as infants, Will as a toddler• Birth and death become primary thoughts in

Mary’s mind

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

The Challenge

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

Hollywood’s “Frankenstein”

FRANKENSTEIN

“My imagination, unbidden, possessed and guided me …I saw the pale student of unhallowed arts kneeling beside the thing he had put together—I 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.”

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.

A Year of Tragedy

In 1822:

• Claire’s 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.

Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley died in 1851.