Mary Shelley was a British novel writer, short story author, dramaturge, essayist, biographer, and travel author, well known for her Gothic novel Frankenstein: or, The Modern Prometheus. She also edited and promoted the books of her husband, the Romantic poet and philosopher Percy Bysshe Shelley. Her dad was the political philosopher William Godwin, and her mom was the philosopher and feminist Mary Wollstonecraft.
mary Godwin's mom passed away when she was eleven days old; afterwards, she and her older half-sister, Fanny Imlay, were brought up by her dad. When Mary was four, Godwin married his neighbour, Mary Jane Clairmont. Godwin provided his daughter with a rich, if informal, education, encouraging her to adhere to his liberal political theories. In 1814, Mary Godwin began a romantic relationship with one of her father's political followers, the married Percy Bysshe Shelley. Together with Mary's stepsister, Claire Clairmont, they left for France and travelled through Europe; upon their return to England, Mary was pregnant with Percy's child. Over the next two years, she and Percy faced ostracism, constant debt, and the death of their prematurely born daughter. They married in late 1816 after the suicide of Percy Shelley's first wife, Harriet.
in 1816, the couple famously spent a summer with Lord Byron, John William Polidori, and Claire Clairmont near Geneva, Switzerland, where Mary conceived the idea for her novel Frankenstein.
Mary Shelley
