Mary Shelley provides a fascinating study as an author. Did she really write the book or did she just provide the basis of the story which her husband then took over and completed. How do her famous (infamous?) parents and her home life figure into the story? Why did she revamp the story in 1831? We’ll discuss all those topics and more on this page.
Her father was William Godwin, a gradual anarchist – as opposed to being a violent revolutionary anarchist – who believed that man, as a race, could be perfected and then require no government as the race of man would then have no vices that required governing. He wrote prolifically, both fiction and non-fiction (though his philosophy would certainly be considered fictional by many) and left a significant imprint on the literature of England.
His 1797 marriage to Mary Wollstonecraft shocked the radical society because they had both written passionately against the concept of marriage and because they married due to her pregnancy - not that being pregnant out-of-wedlock was a new experience for her. She had incited shock and scandal through her earlier affairs with Henry Fuseli and Gilbert Imlay, bearing a daughter, Fanny Imlay, to the latter. Mary Wollstonecraft wrote one of the earliest feminist documents as well as several other books. Her biography, penned by Godwin, revealed to the general public her promiscuous lifestyle and thus destroyed her reputation for a century until the next generation of feminists came into prominence and excused her irregular lifestyle.
Wollstonecraft died due to her physician’s incompetence at the age of thirty-eight, leaving her husband alone with their eleven-day-old daughter and Wollstonecraft’s other daughter, Fanny Imlay. Three years later he married again to provide a mother for his child and step-child, once again exciting the anger of his radical circle. His new wife brought new money and discipline to the debt-ridden Godwin household, though she was quite unpopular with William’s social circle. She was one of the very few female publishers at this time in England. Unfortunately, she wasn’t much of a mother to Mary, exhibiting a clear preference for her own children.
Strife and confusion marked Mary’s early years. No fewer than seven significant wars started during those years, including the Napoleanic wars (1799-1815). The fearful atmosphere attributable to the French Revolution was still very much a part of the culture – in fact, Mary’s father was a Jacobin, a supporter of the French Revolution in principle, though repelled by The Terror. Additionally, her own home offered little comfort as she felt unwanted by her stepmother. Mary spent a great deal of her time at her mother’s graveside where she read and did other things to pass the time… eventually one of those things would be having sex with Percy Shelley, who left his wife and two children to be with the sixteen-year-old Mary.
Mary’s father was radical, but not quite radical enough to accept the situation; he and Mary were estranged for a couple of years over this escapade. This greatly confused and hurt Mary who held a very strong emotional attachment for her free-love supporting father. Free love, that is, so long as it didn’t involve his daughter. Curiously, Shelley was supporting the family while he was trysting with young Mary. When her father discovered their affair, he allowed Shelley to continue paying his bills, but denied him access to his household and attempted, unsuccessfully, to keep him away from Mary. The illicit couple ran off, taking her step-sister, Claire Clairmont, with them. Mary returned from their idyllic trip pregnant.
Mary and Shelley were married not long after Shelley’s wife was found drowned, presumably a suicide. Though this was a time of high mortality, Mary knew more than her share of death. Percy Shelley died when his sailboat sank, though he may have been murdered as he had been shot at twice in the days before his death. Her half-sister, Fanny Imlay, committed suicide. Of her five children, one miscarried, three died in tender years if not infancy, and only one lived to see adulthood. Little wonder that she had such deep feelings associated with death and resurrection!
