Among the forerunners in the vindication of women's rights in the society of the time, a position that Mary Shelley supported throughout her life, we must mention:
Mary Wollstonecraft (1759-1797), mother of Mary Shelley and one of the pioneers of the modern feminist movement (her work A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, 1792 stands out), was a staunch defender of a social order based on reason. She established herself as a professional freelance writer in London, which was unusual for the time.
Anna Laetitia Barbauld (1743-1825), poetess, essayist, literary critic, editor and author of children's literature. She had a great influence on the Romantic movement of the time by promoting Enlightenment values and sensibility. Her poetry contributed to the development of British Romanticism and her anthology of 18th-century novels helped establish the current literary canon.
Among her contemporaries:
Charlotte Brontë (1816-1855), writer of what is considered the first Romantic novel in the English language, Jane Eyre, which incorporates gothic elements of the Gothic.
Emily Brontë (1818-1848), whose novel Wuthering Heights, also incorporates gothic elements and has established itself as one of the classics of British literature.
Elizabeth Gaskell (1810-1865), one of the great novelists who wrote about "the condition of England", that is, about society and problems of the working class. Her novels include Mary Barton and North and South.
George Sand, pseudonym of Amantine Aurore Lucile Dupin de Dudevant (1804-1876), was one of the most notable writers of Romanticism and immensely popular in her time.
Mary Shelley
London 30-08-1797 ‖ London 01-02-1851
Period of activity: From 1817 until 1844
Geographical classification: Europe > United Kingdom
Socio-cultural movements
Late modern period / Contemporary period > Romanticism
Groups by dedication
Travellers / Expeditionaries > Travellers
Humanistics > Intellectuals
Popularisers / Cultural promoters > Publishers
Writers > in > English
Writers > Poets
Writers > Story writers
Writers > Essayists
Writers > Biographers
Writers > Journalists / Chroniclers
Context of feminine creation
Review
Mary Shelley was a 19th-century British writer who wrote in the Romantic movement. She wrote novels, short stories, travelogues, biographies and poems, and she was also an editor. She is known worldwide for her novel Frankenstein, which today is considered a classic within the genre of the Gothic novel and the Romantic current and, for some critics, the first science fiction novel.
Activities
English
Spanish
Catalan
Justifications
Biography
Mary Shelley, née Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin was born in Somers Town, London, in 1797. She was the second child of the feminist philosopher and writer Mary Wollstonecraft and the first child of the philosopher, novelist and journalist William Godwin, who had very liberal ideas for his time.
Mary's mother died of a postpartum infection after giving birth to her, so she and her older half-sister, Fanny Imlay, Wollstonecraft's daughter with the American Gilbert Imlay, were raised by her father, who provided a good education for their daughters. Mary Shelley counted on the rich library of her parents, a tutor and a governess.
Mary Shelley led a very liberal life and contrary to the rigid morality of her time. Already at sixteen, she entered a romantic relationship with one of the intellectuals who surrounded her father, Percy Bysshe Shelley, who was married. Soon, Mary became pregnant with Percy Shelley’s child at the same time as his wife. The couple then opted to run away along with Claire Clairmont, Mary Godwin's teenage stepsister. They travelled to the Swiss city of Lucerne, but soon had to return to England because they had no money to survive.
Mary Shelley, Percy Shelley and Claire Clairmont lived for more than a year in a free love relationship, subsisting on Percy Shelley's family income. During this time, Mary lost her daughter, born prematurely, which plunged her into a deep depression.
In 1816 the couple had a second son, William. That same year, Percy Shelley and Mary Godwin travelled to the Swiss town of Cologny to spend a few days with the poet Lord Byron, who had begun an affair with Claire, Mary's stepsister. During those days, there was some heavy rain, forcing them to stay at home and exchange horror stories for entertainment. It was then that Mary Godwin created the story that would later become her most famous novel: Frankenstein. The novel was published in 1818, and anonymously in its first edition.
Despite their liberal views on marriage, on their return from Switzerland the couple married to please their families. Thus, Mary Godwin became Mary Shelley. Mary Shelley's depression over the death of her first daughter was compounded by the suicide of her sister Fanny Imlay, the death of her children William and Clara, her third daughter, and the death of Percy Shelley during a sailing trip on a beach in Tuscany.
Mary Shelley returned in the company of her fourth child, Percy Florence Shelley, to England, where she lived in precarious conditions, earning her living by writing. When her son married, Mary Shelley retired to live with him and his wife until 1 February 1851, when she died of a brain tumour.
During her years in England, Mary Shelley had written all kinds of works: historical novels, travelogues, biographies, short stories of various genres and essays. At the same time, she dedicated herself to translating and publishing works by other authors, such as Lord Byron, and promoting those that her husband had written, with more success than he himself had had. Although in life Mary Shelley was a well-known writer, after her death only one of her books would remain in the collective memory: Frankenstein, the story in which she had poured her own monsters in that rainy summer of 1816.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Shelley (17/06/2023)
https://historia.nationalgeographic.com.es/a/tormento-literario-mary-shelley_15577 (Spanish) (13/04/2022)
Works
Travel diaries:
- History of a Six Weeks' Tour through a part of France, Switzerland, Germany, and Holland; with Letters Descriptive of a Sail Round the Lake of Geneva and of the Glaciers of Chamouni (1817) <https://books.google.es/books?id=u1YJAAAAQAAJ&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false> (10/04/2022)
Short narrative:
- Transformation (1831) in Repositório Institucional da UFS. <https://repositorio.ufsc.br/bitstream/handle/123456789/157359/Transformation%20-%20Mary%20Shelley.pdf?sequence=> (10/04/2022)
- The Mortal Immortal (1833) in Repositório Institucional da UFS. <https://repositorio.ufsc.br/xmlui/bitstream/handle/123456789/157358/The%20Mortal%20Immortal%20-%20Mary%20Shelley.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y> (10/04/2022)
- The Invisible Girl (1832) in Project Gutenberg Australia. <http://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks06/0603151h.html> (10/04/2022)
- The Reanimated Englishman (1863), in Digital.library.upenn.edu. <https://digital.library.upenn.edu/women/shelley/redding/dodsworth.html>, (10/04/2022)
Novels:
- Frankenstein or the Modern Prometheus (1818) in Oapen. <https://library.oapen.org/bitstream/id/24cb1da5-a512-4de1-b24c-639b6452dbec/628778.pdf> (10/04/2022)
- Mathilda (1819) in Project Guttenberg. <https://www.gutenberg.org/files/15238/15238-h/15238-h.htm> (10/04/2022)
- Falkner (1837) in Project Guttenberg, 10/04/2022. <https://www.gutenberg.org/files/64329/64329-h/64329-h.htm> (10/04/2022)
Bibliography
Smith, Johanna M.(2000). Frankenstein: Complete, Authoritative Text with Biographical, Historical, and Cultural Contexts, Critical History, and Essays from Five Contemporary Critical Perspectives. Boston : Bedford/St. Martin's.
Audiovisual:
In Spanish:
Belén García, Ana. RTVE.es
<http://www.rtve.es/las-claves/en-la-mente-de-mary-shelley-la-madre-de-frankenstein-2018-05-28> (retrieved on 19/07/2021)
Video file]
<https://canal.uned.es/video/5a6f373db1111f43368b4584> ( 9/07/2021)
In English:
- Mary Shelley’s conception of Frankenstein. The Secret Life of Books, BBC Four [Video file]
<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VM1D_xUjuOE> (retrieved on 19/07/2021)
- Meet Mary Shelley and Lord Byron. Doctor Who, Sundays at 8pm, BBC America [Archivo de vídeo] <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P_XYsE5uZgc> (retrieved on 19/07/2021),
- Frankenstein. In our time, BBC. [Audio file]
<https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m00051n6>(retrieved on 19/07/2021),
- Frankenstein Lives! BBC Archive on 4. [Audio file] <https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/b09lvy6l> (retrieved on 19/07/2021),
Didactic approach
- In the subject of English, the author's works can be used as readings throughout the course. A short story or a novel can be chosen.
On the other hand, the figure of the author or her famous novel Frankenstein can be introduced to talk about the Romantic movement and the genre of the gothic and horror novel, as well as to introduce vocabulary about supernatural phenomena, together with the explanation of the narrative and the introduction of the contrast of past tenses (Past Simple, Past Continuous). To do this, an extract from a short story by Mary Shelley or from her novel Frankenstein can be read. It is highly recommended to introduce these contents on Halloween.
- In the subject of Spanish and Valencian language and literature: the figure of Mary Shelley can be introduced when talking about European Romanticism and the development of the Gothic genre. A short story can also be read.