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.
The plot concerns an English governess to an Italian family in Rome, who opposes the love which develops between her and the grown-up son. AL
plants allusions to Jane Eyre and to famous English...
Intertextuality and Influence
Marguerite Gardiner, Countess of Blessington
The elderly lady, Lady Arabella, represents a chilly view of the English aristocracy. She opens her story with a paean in praise of past times and in dispraise of the present: How interminably long the...
Intertextuality and Influence
Liz Lochhead
In considering the question of why Mary Shelley
created monsters, LL
says she was haunted by that phrase from Goya
: The sleep of reason produces monsters. If you try to force things to be...
CN
found solace and political support in other friendships. Lawyer Abraham Hayward
and MP Thomas Noon Talfourd
became her allies in her attempts to change the law on custody of children, and gossip soon alleged...
Friends, Associates
Margiad Evans
A young poet whom she calls B—, a descendant of Percy Shelley
(and therefore presumably of Mary Shelley
too), whom she had known since his boyhood, moved from his own cottage to stay with ME
Matthew, Henry Colin Gray et al., editors. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. http://www.oxforddnb.com/.
Mary...
Friends, Associates
Eliza Fenwick
On 23 July 1810, after a year which she said had taught [her] new griefs whose nature she does not explain, Fenwick wrote in anguish to Hays, who had stopped communicating with her. She knew...
Friends, Associates
Eliza Fenwick
EF
fully shared in her husband's friendship with William Godwin
. She exchanged visits with him, sometimes with one or other of her children, from the time she first entertained him in November 1788. He...
Friends, Associates
Mary Lamb
Friends were still being added to the Lambs' circle late in their lives, including literary friends like John Clare
and Thomas Hood
. Charles corresponded with Mary Shelley
; ML
corresponded with Mary Matilda Betham
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...
Friends, Associates
George Gordon, sixth Baron Byron
His final exit from England was made in the company of Hobhouse
, and on the shores of Lake Geneva he met up with Percy
and Mary Shelley
and Mary's step-sister Claire Clairmont
, with...
Friends, Associates
Mary Cowden Clarke
MCC
's parents frequently entertained eminent literary figures in a drawing-room where the paintings were all executed by distinguished friends. At an early age she became acquainted with Charles
and Mary Lamb
, Leigh Hunt
Friends, Associates
William Hazlitt
In 1817 he was sitting up until three in the morning with Percy
and Mary Shelley
discussing monarchy and republicanism.
Shelley, Mary. The Journals of Mary Shelley, 1814-1844. Editors Feldman, Paula R. and Diana Scott-Kilvert, Johns Hopkins University Press.
