Women’s Writing in the British Isles from the Beginnings to the Present
Mary Shelley
-
Standard Name: Shelley, Mary
Birth Name: Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin
Married Name: Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley
Pseudonym: Mary S.
Pseudonym: Mrs Caroline Barnard
MS
, long known almost exclusively for Frankenstein, is now being read for her later novels and her plays, as well as for her journals and letters. Her editing, reviewing, biographical, and journalistic work entitle her to the designation woman of letters. She is an important figure among women Romantics, and a channel for the reformist ideals of the 1790s forwards into the Victorian era.
MS
published her first solo book, the biographical study Child of Light: A Reassessment of Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley.
Rees, David. Muriel Spark, William Trevor, Ian McEwan, A Bibliography of their First Editions. Colophon Press.
7
Textual Production
Muriel Spark
MS
published My Best Mary: The Selected Letters of Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, which she edited together with Derek Stanford
.
The half-title wrongly lists MS
as editor of a complete edition of Shelley's The Last Man.
Rees, David. Muriel Spark, William Trevor, Ian McEwan, A Bibliography of their First Editions. Colophon Press.
20
Rees, David. Muriel Spark, William Trevor, Ian McEwan, A Bibliography of their First Editions. Colophon Press.
20
Publishing
Muriel Spark
Alan Pryce-Jones
, editor of the Times Literary Supplement, commissioned MS
for a middle page on Mary Shelley
before her book appeared. Spark also gave a talk on Shelley for the BBC
Third Programme...
Travel
Germaine de Staël
Napoleon's escape from Elba sent her back from Paris to Coppet. She was there as Mary Shelley
was writing Frankenstein on the other side of Lake Geneva. Not until late 1816 did she return...
During her tenure she encountered the very best and worst of late Victorian poetry. Her published reviews, which critic Marysa Demoor
characterises as expressing a hesitant modernism,
Demoor, Marysa. “Women Poets as Critics in the <span data-tei-ns-tag="tei_title" data-tei-title-lvl=‘j’>Athenæum</span>: Ungendered Anonymity Unmasked”. Nineteenth-Century Prose, Vol.
DW
's selection, though, demonstrates a serious interest in women's literary and feminist history. Of the selections whose authors can be identified, almost half are women. Though Marguerite, Lady Blessington
, doyenne of the albums...
Family and Intimate relationships
Mary Wollstonecraft
After a long and painful labour, MW
bore her second daughter, Mary
.
Tomalin, Claire. The Life and Death of Mary Wollstonecraft. Penguin.
275-6
Occupation
Mary Wollstonecraft
She took strongly against the manners of the aristocracy but formed a strong bond with the eldest of her three pupils, Margaret King
, who was fourteen years old, tall and plain, with a wonderful...
Friends, Associates
Frances Wright
On her voyage back to Europe, FW
had as companion Robert Owen
's son, Robert Dale Owen
. During her stay in Europe, she made the acquaintance of Mary Shelley
(who became a friend and...
Friends, Associates
Frances Wright
Mary Shelley
was present at FW
's departure. Frances Trollope
was disappointed by the conditions of the colony and even more so by what she felt had been a misrepresentation of its advantages. Fearing for...
