She was the daughter of pioneering feminist Mary Wollstonecraft and radical philosopher William Godwin, both reviled for their unconventional views. She ran away with poet Percy Bysshe Shelley when she was 16 and wrote Frankenstein when she was 19. Three of her four children died in infancy; her husband drowned before she turned 25. Yet Mary Shelley (1797-1851) persevered to write other novels (none so famous as her first), to nurture her husband's literary status (decidedly shaky at the time of his death), and to support her son and acquire a devoted daughter-in-law who was partly responsible for her rather dull posthumous reputation as the quintessential devoted widow. British novelist and biographer Miranda Seymour paints a more nuanced portrait of Mary as a sharply intelligent, sometimes cantankerous woman who did not always graciously suffer Percy's blithe impetuousness and principled infidelities (possibly including one with her stepsister). Guilt at being the innocent cause of her mother's death may have played a part in the genesis of Frankenstein, Seymour acknowledges, but so did Mary's views on slavery, the landscape of Scotland, and the tales she heard there as a teenager of disastrous Arctic expeditions. The story of how Frankenstein came to be written while the Shelleys were vacationing in Switzerland with Byron is well known, but Seymour retells it well. Her strong account of how Mary's character was formed in conflict, first with an unloved stepmother and then with a difficult husband, makes the subsequent 30 years of her life more understandable and almost as interesting as the first quarter century. Drawing on feminist scholarship of the last 30 years but written for the general public, Seymour's lucid biography captures the whole woman, not just the author of Frankenstein or the grieving widow of Percy Shelley. --Wendy Smith


From Publishers Weekly
Twenty-five years ago, Seymour wrote a historical novel based on Lord Byron's life that reflected the prevailing view of Mary Shelley, the willful child-bride who, briefly touched by her husband's genius, produced one extraordinary work before sinking back into her native mediocrity and conventionality. Now, in this splendid biography, Seymour makes handsome amends. The Mary Shelley who emerges here is a remarkably mature and steady woman who suffered greatly, first from her erratic husband's self-absorption and then from losing three of her four children before she turned 25. Close to penniless after her husband's death by drowning, she successfully turned to hack work to support her son, her father and his second wife. In her vulnerable position as an unmarried woman making her own living, widely viewed as scandalous and immoral, she was frequently the target of slander. Throughout it all, she remained quick to speak out in defense of women like herself, who had struck out for personal freedom and been condemned for it. The tangle of irregular sexual connections, illegitimacy and adultery that characterized Shelley's circle of literary friends will surprise readers unfamiliar with early Victorian manners, as will the modern-sounding postmortem spin placed on Mary's and Percy's respective reputations. Nor is Frankenstein neglected, as Seymour convincingly argues for its roots in Mary's detestation of slavery and uncovers biographical sources for some of its scenes. Her primary concern, however, is the whole life of her subject, whom she admires deeply and whom she presents as flawed but heroic. Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.


From Library Journal
Writers from Emily Sunstein (Mary Shelley: Romance and Reality, LJ 1/89) to Sandra Gilbert and Susan Gubar in their seminal The Madwoman in the Attic (LJ 9/1/79) have portrayed Mary Shelley as a nascent feminist optimistic about changing the political currents of her day. Novelist and biographer Seymour (Life on the Grand Scale: Ottoline Morrell) strongly challenges these views in her animated and elegant chronicle of Shelley's life and work. Born to two of the most famous parents in 19th-century England philosopher and novelist William Godwin and political activist Mary Wollstonecraft, who died ten days after giving birth to Mary the young girl inherited their intellectual perspicacity. When she was 16, she eloped with Percy Bysshe Shelley, and by the time she was 24, she had been widowed, lost three of her four children in infancy, and written what was to become her most famous book, Frankenstein. Although she wrote several novels and contributed historical essays to encyclopedias after Percy's death, she sacrificed her own reputation in order to secure her husband's. Seymour's portrayal of Mary as a woman struggling against the black clouds of despair, haunted by the idea that her own misfortunes were punishment for having stolen Percy from his first wife, Harriett, convincingly challenges the conventional view of Mary as an active and optimistic woman of letters. Seymour's lively writing, penetrating critical insights, and attention to detail elevate this to one of the finest and most significant literary biographies of recent years. Highly recommended.- Henry L. Carrigan Jr., Lancaster, PA Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc.


From Booklist
*Starred Review* Among the Romantics, only Wordsworth now attracts a larger following than Mary Shelley. Yet the author of Frankenstein remains a stranger to the many readers who see her through a cloud of misrepresentations, many of them arising from Mary's tangled relationship with her eventual husband, Percy Bysshe Shelley. With an accomplished novelist's insights into the illogic of human passions, Seymour teases out the dynamics of this improbable union of geniuses. She thus delivers Shelley from distorted images that have been either long fossilized in Victorian censure or newly sanitized in feminist hagiography. An acute reading of her correspondence and journals gives us a paradoxical woman who commanded epochal talents even as an adolescent but who had not achieved a basic selfunderstanding even as a mature adult. This same shrewd scholarship discredits the hostile critics' portrayal of Shelley as a moral monster while still limning a dark similarity between the great novelist and the monster she made famous: both creatures cruelly rejected by those who had created them. In the final and most unsettling revelation, Seymour penetrates the selfalienation that caused Shelley to endorse the verdict of her harshest judges, so condemning herself relentlessly for crimes against her dead husband and his first wife. A convincing and memorable portrait. Bryce Christensen
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved


Book Description
A New York Times Notable Book of the Year and a Washington Post Best Book of 2001, Mary Shelley has been called "a harrowing life, wonderfully retold" (The Washington Post). This "splendid biography" (The New Yorker) gracefully moves through the dramatic life of the woman behind history's most legendary monster. A daughter of Mary Wollstonecraft, author of the daring A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, and the radical philosopher William Godwin, Mary Shelley grew up amid the literary and political avant-garde of early-nineteenth-century London. She escaped to Europe at seventeen with the married poet Percy Bysshe Shelley, causing a great scandal. On a famous night of eerie thunderstorms, in a villa near Lord Byron's on Lake Geneva, they told ghost stories and tales of horror, giving birth to the idea of Frankenstein, a monster who has haunted imaginations for nearly two hundred years. The Mary we meet here, brilliantly brought to life by Seymour from previously unexplored sources, is brave, generous, and impetuous. Struck by tragedy, she lost three of her four children, and when she was only twenty-four, Shelley drowned off the coast of Italy. As Henry Carrigan of Library Journal said, this is "one of the finest and most significant literary biographies of recent years." "Miranda Seymour's biography of Mary Shelley provides a thoughtfully considered, lifelike portrait of a complex, often misunderstood character." -- Merle Rubin, Los Angeles Times "[Miranda Seymour] has vivid narrative gifts and a perceptive understanding of the main personalities." -- Claude Rawson, The New York Times Book Review "Mary Shelley is the most dazzling biography of a female writer to have come my way for a decade." -- Jackie Wullschlager, Financial Times

FROM THE PUBLISHER

Recounting the dramatic life of the woman behind history's most legendary monster, Miranda Seymour unbuttons a world of brilliant literary figures in Mary Shelley and weaves a rich tapestry of nineteenth-century Europe in which Frankenstein was born.

Mary Shelley is the definitive account of the gifted and tragic author whose escape to France at seventeen with the married poet Percy Bysshe Shelley caused great scandal in London and permanently scarred her reputation. The couple traveled, with Mary's stepsister Claire Clairmont in tow, from France to Italy and Switzerland. In the summer of 1816 they rented a villa near Lord Byron's on Lake Geneva where, on a famous night of eerie thunderstorms, they told ghost stories and tales of horror. From that night emerged the idea of Frankenstein, a monster who has become an archetype of societal rejection and has haunted imaginations for nearly two hundred years. His creator was an eighteen-year-old girl.

Tragedy shadowed Mary; she came to lose three of her four children in infancy, and when she was twenty-four, Shelley drowned off the coast of Italy. After his death she moved back to a bleak and impoverished England with her only remaining child and was reduced to hack writing to make ends meet.

The Mary we meet here, brilliantly brought to life by Seymour from unexplored sources, is flawed, brave, generous, and impetuous. Seymour's fresh examination is dynamic and balanced. It delves into Mary's often overlooked final years as well as her varied experiences that wove together to create her masterpiece, Frankenstein.

FROM THE CRITICS

Publishers Weekly

Twenty-five years ago, Seymour wrote a historical novel based on Lord Byron's life that reflected the prevailing view of Mary Shelley, the willful child-bride who, briefly touched by her husband's genius, produced one extraordinary work before sinking back into her native mediocrity and conventionality. Now, in this splendid biography, Seymour makes handsome amends. The Mary Shelley who emerges here is a remarkably mature and steady woman who suffered greatly, first from her erratic husband's self-absorption and then from losing three of her four children before she turned 25. Close to penniless after her husband's death by drowning, she successfully turned to hack work to support her son, her father and his second wife. In her vulnerable position as an unmarried woman making her own living, widely viewed as scandalous and immoral, she was frequently the target of slander. Throughout it all, she remained quick to speak out in defense of women like herself, who had struck out for personal freedom and been condemned for it. The tangle of irregular sexual connections, illegitimacy and adultery that characterized Shelley's circle of literary friends will surprise readers unfamiliar with early Victorian manners, as will the modern-sounding postmortem spin placed on Mary's and Percy's respective reputations. Nor is Frankenstein neglected, as Seymour convincingly argues for its roots in Mary's detestation of slavery and uncovers biographical sources for some of its scenes. Her primary concern, however, is the whole life of her subject, whom she admires deeply and whom she presents as flawed but heroic. (Sept.) Copyright 1999 Cahners Business Information.

Library Journal

Writers from Emily Sunstein (Mary Shelley: Romance and Reality, LJ 1/89) to Sandra Gilbert and Susan Gubar in their seminal The Madwoman in the Attic (LJ 9/1/79) have portrayed Mary Shelley as a nascent feminist optimistic about changing the political currents of her day. Novelist and biographer Seymour (Life on the Grand Scale: Ottoline Morrell) strongly challenges these views in her animated and elegant chronicle of Shelley's life and work. Born to two of the most famous parents in 19th-century England philosopher and novelist William Godwin and political activist Mary Wollstonecraft, who died ten days after giving birth to Mary the young girl inherited their intellectual perspicacity. When she was 16, she eloped with Percy Bysshe Shelley, and by the time she was 24, she had been widowed, lost three of her four children in infancy, and written what was to become her most famous book, Frankenstein. Although she wrote several novels and contributed historical essays to encyclopedias after Percy's death, she sacrificed her own reputation in order to secure her husband's. Seymour's portrayal of Mary as a woman struggling against the black clouds of despair, haunted by the idea that her own misfortunes were punishment for having stolen Percy from his first wife, Harriett, convincingly challenges the conventional view of Mary as an active and optimistic woman of letters. Seymour's lively writing, penetrating critical insights, and attention to detail elevate this to one of the finest and most significant literary biographies of recent years. Highly recommended. [Previewed in Prepub Alert, LJ 5/1/01.] Henry L. Carrigan Jr., Lancaster, PA Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information.

Kirkus Reviews