Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley (1797-1851)

1. Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley (1797-1851) AP English Mr. Delhagen

2. Early Life • Born in Somers Town, London, on August 30th, 1797 • Mary’s mother died 10 days after she was born, from puerperal fever • Her father raised her and her half-sister (Mary Wollstonecraft’s child, Fanny, from an earlier affair

3. Parents William Godwin (1756-1836) Journalist, philosopher, and novelist Mary Wollstonecraft (1759-1797) Educator and feminist philosopher known for: A Vindication of the Rights of Woman

4. Parents • Wollstonecraft and Godwin were eminent thinkers of their time. • Adhered to revolutionary • principles in both • politics and • their private lives. • In spite of despising the institution of marriage, they married so their child could enter society.

5. Parent Influence • Knew her mother only through her writings. • Utmost stress placed on female independence. • Influence seen in Mary’s retention of her mother’s name (went by Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin until she married- dropped Godwin, retained Wollstonecraft).

6. Parent Influence • Godwin remarried Mary Jane Vial (Clairmont) • Mary Jane brought two of her own children to the marriage. • Mary Jane did not encourage intellectual curiosity and did not raise Mary according to her mother’s principles.

7. Parent Influence • Mary never went to school, but was taught to read and write at home. • Her father encouraged her to use her imagination, so she started “scribbling” at a very young age. • Gave her access to his extensive library of English authors.

8. Parent Influence • William Godwin had many friends who would come by for discussions: political, philosophical, scientific, literary, etc. • Godwin allowed Mary to sit quietly in a corner and listen to these discussions. • Some of his friends included William Wordsworth, Charles and Mary Lamb, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, and William Hazlitt.

9. Percy Bysshe Shelley • One of her father’s frequent visitors was the widely admired poet Percy Shelley. • When Mary was 16, she and Percy eloped to France (he was still married- SCANDAL!) • They married in 1816 and lived together for eight years until his untimely death in a boating accident

10. Personal Tragedies • Percy Shelley died in a boating accident at age 29 in 1822 • In her journal, Mary described her years with Percy as “romantic beyond romance.” • Mary’s romance with Percy Shelley caused a three-year estrangement from her father. • Mary gave birth to four children in five years, three of whom died as infants.

11. Later Life and Death • Following Percy’s death in 1822, Mary Shelley returned to England and supported herself, her son, and her father with her writings. • She write four novels, including The Last Man(1826), a futuristic story about the destruction of the human race. • She collected and annotated Percy Shelley’s poems for publication to preserve his literary legacy. • She died in 1851 after a long illness, some have hypothesized was a brain tumor.