Mary Shelley

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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.
Half-length painting of Mary Shelley by Richard Rothwell, exhibited 1840. She sits on a red-draped couch, gazing serenely forward, wearing a black dress that leaves her shoulders bare. She has a gold waistband and gold band in her hair. A vertical streak of light on the right is thought by some to represent the spirit of her husband, Percy Bysshe Shelley. National Portrait Gallery.

Milestones

30 August 1797

MS was born at 29 The Polygon, Somers Town, London.
Shelley, Mary. “Introduction”. Frankenstein, edited by David Lorne Macdonald and Kathleen Scherf, Broadview, pp. 11-43.
41
Sunstein, Emily W. Mary Shelley: Romance and Reality. Little, Brown.
18

16 June 1816

MS , during a wakeful night at the Villa Diodati on Lake Geneva, saw in a waking dream, with shut eyes, but acute mental vision, the figures which became the two protagonists, creator and creature, of Frankenstein.
Radford, Tim. “Frankenstein’s birthday identified by astronomers”. Guardian Weekly, pp. 32-3.
32-3

14 June 1817

The firm of John Murray declined to publish Frankenstein or Modern Prometheus, which had been offered to them through H[orace] (or Horatio) Smith , a close friend of Percy Bysshe Shelley , the author 's husband.
Sutherland, Kathryn. “Jane Austen’s Dealings with John Murray and his Firm”. Review of English Studies, Vol.
52
.
6

January 1818

MS published, anonymously, her first and best-known novel, Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus.
Quarterly Review. J. Murray.
18 (1818): 379

July 1844

MS published, anonymously, her final book: Rambles in Germany and Italy in 1840, 1842 and 1843.
Shelley, Mary. “Introduction”. Lodore, edited by Lisa Vargo, Broadview, pp. 9-45.
45

1 February 1851

MS died in London, from a brain tumour.
Shelley, Mary. “Introduction”. Frankenstein, edited by David Lorne Macdonald and Kathleen Scherf, Broadview, pp. 11-43.
43

Biography

Birth

30 August 1797

MS was born at 29 The Polygon, Somers Town, London.
Shelley, Mary. “Introduction”. Frankenstein, edited by David Lorne Macdonald and Kathleen Scherf, Broadview, pp. 11-43.
41
Sunstein, Emily W. Mary Shelley: Romance and Reality. Little, Brown.
18

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