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.
Late in Herschel's long life the honours showered upon her generally recognised her as a woman scientist. By 1842 young ladies at or near Augusta, Georgia, USA, had formed a Caroline Herschel Association
—and...
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.
163
Literary responses
Beatrice Harraden
Marie Belloc Lowndes
described this book for the Times Literary Supplement as a strangely poignant drama and likened it to Mary Shelley
's Frankenstein and Sir Walter Scott
's Waverley for its comparable ability to...
death
William Godwin
WG
, novelist, political philosopher, widower of Mary Wollstonecraft
, and father of Mary Shelley
, died in London.
Sherburn, George, and William Godwin. “Introduction”. Caleb Williams, Holt, Rinehart, and Winston, p. vii - xx.
xvii
Family and Intimate relationships
William Godwin
He was already famous (or, to some, infamous) for his writings when he and Mary Wollstonecraft
became lovers in August 1796. They married on 29 March 1797 (although both of them disapproved of the institution...
Occupation
William Godwin
The imprint M. J. Godwin and Company was launched the following year. The business flourished, becoming almost a literary salon like that of Joseph Johnson
: visitors included Germaine de Staël
. It remained, however...
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...
Intertextuality and Influence
Elizabeth Gaskell
Mary Barton contains remarkable scenes of domestic life amongst the working classes and harrowing portraits of industrial suffering, particularly the oozing cellar where a friend of the Bartons dies.
Gaskell, Elizabeth. Mary Barton. Editor Foster, Jennifer, Broadview.
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...
Textual Features
Elizabeth Fenton
Fenton sets out to paint a a familiar picture of the everyday occurrences, manners, and habits of life of persons undistinguished either by wealth or fame
Fenton, Elizabeth. The Journal of Mrs. Fenton. Editor Lawrence, Sir Henry, Edward Arnold.
1-2
in British India. But this is largely unfulfilled...
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
Theme or Topic Treated in Text
Helen Dunmore
The title poem pictures a man skating on a pond; he has the air, though, of a long-distance rather than a pleasure skater, and the poem imagines him going on forever, mounting the crusted waves...
Textual Features
Maureen Duffy
MD
's protagonist here is a being created by experiment, half-man, half-gorilla, a person of two worlds, animal and human.
Duffy, Maureen. That’s How It Was. Virago.
x
This story translates into speciesism the classism which Duffy says she has always lived...
