The Life of Mary Shelley
Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley was born in 1791 in London. She is the daughter of Mary Wollstonecraft and William Goodwin. Wollstonecraft was a radical feminist writer, and Goodwin was a writer as well as a philosopher. It was said that this couple's combined intellect was dangerous to society; however, days after Mary's birth, Wollstonecraft died due to complications from the pregnancy. Mary spent a lot of time visiting her mother's grave when she was growing up. Her father taught her how to spell her mother's name by having her trace the letters on the headstone with her fingers, an interesting yet morbid way to teach a seven year old how to spell. Goodwin raised Mary by himself for the early part of her life. When Mary was four, he married Mary Jane Clairmont, who also had children from a previous marriage. Mary never fully accepted the stepfamily; she always felt like an outsider. Many of her feelings of loneliness and longing to know her mother are issues that are prevalent in the novel Frankenstein. These issues are analogous to the search that the monster had for his creator.
During Mary's teenage years, Goodwin owned a publishing company, so the Goodwin household was filled with famous authors and intellectuals. Coleridge was known to visit the house often. On one occasion he read the recently completed The Rime Of the Ancient Mariner in their living room, while Mary stayed up past her bedtime to listen. Percy Bysshe Shelley also came to the house on a regular basis to seek knowledge from Goodwin, who was one of his mentors. Mary grew fond of him, and they began their courtship when she was only fifteen and he was twenty. When Mary was sixteen she ran off to Europe with Percy, a...
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... it has on the horror/science fiction writers today.
Works Cited and Consulted
1. Caprio, Terry. ( Accessed 23 Oct 00) http://loki.stockton.edu/~stk13818/mary.htm
2. "Frankenstein: The Modern Prometheus Home." U.S. National Library of Medicine. (Last Mod 28 Jan 00) ( Accessed 12 Oct 00) http://www.nlm.nih.gov/hmd/frankenstein/frank_birth.html
3. Hamberg, Cynthia. "My Hideous Progeny: Mary Shelley's Frankenstein." ( Last Mod/1999/2000(c)). Yahoo. ( Accessed 15 Oct 00).http://srd.yahoo.com/drst/27147033/*http://home-1.worldonline.nl/~hamberg/
4. "Mary Shelley and Frankenstein." ( Last Mod 11 Jan 00). (Accessed 10 Oct 00). http://www.desert-fairy.com/life.shtml
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Shelley, Mary. "From Frankenstein." The Example of Science. Ed. Robert E Lynch and Thomas B. Swanzey. New York: Pearson Publishing, 2000. 152-156.
Shelley, Mary "Frankenstein". The Presence of Others. Comp Andrea A. Lunsford and John J. Ruskiewicz. New York: St. Martins, 1997 230-235.
Mellor, Anne K. Mary Shelley - Her Life, Her Fiction, Her Monsters. New York, New York: Routledge, Chapman, & Hall, Inc., 1989. p 136.
Shelley, Mary. Frankenstein. Ed. D.L. Macdonald and Kathleen Scherf. Orchard Park, NY: Broadview Press, 1999.
Works Cited Shelley, Mary. Frankenstein: A Norton Critical Edition. ed. J. Paul Hunter. New York: W. W. Norton, 1996.
Shelley, Mary. Frankenstein. Ed. J. Paul Hunter. New York: W. W. Norton & Co, 1996.
Shelley, Mary Wollstonecraft. Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus. Ed. D.L. Macdonald and Kathleen Scherf. Peterborough: Broadview Press, 1994.
Shelley, Mary. Frankenstein: A Norton Critical Edition. Ed. J. Paul Hunter. New York: W. W.
Shelley, Mary. “Frankenstein.” In A Norton Critical Edition. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, Inc. 1996.
Poovey, Mary. "My Hideous Progeny: Mary Shelley and the Feminization of Romanticism". PMLA (1980): 332-347. Web. 29 March
Since its publication in 1818, Mary Shelley's Frankenstein has grown to become a name associated with horror and science fiction. To fully understand the importance and origin of this novel, we must look at both the tragedies of Mary Shelley's background and her own origins. Only then can we begin to examine what the icon "Frankenstein" has become in today's society.
...Mary. Frankenstein. Edited by D.L Macdonald and Kathleen Scherf. 3rd ed. Buffalo: Broadview Press, 2010. Print.
Shelley, Mary Wollstonecraft, and Maurice Hindle. Frankenstein, Or, The Modern Prometheus. London: Penguin, 2003. Print.
...e of Olaudah Equiano. It was published in 1789 and was read by people around the world in several different languages. It opened everyone’s eyes to what the slave trade really was. Another reason for the end of slavery was the successful slave revolt in Haiti from 1801-1803. This showed the Americas that slavery could be defeated. And starting in the 18th century, an Industrial Revolution was sweeping over Europe and North America, and by the 19th century slaves started to become less of an economic profit. Then, in 1807, Britain became the first country in Europe to abolish slavery. Soon after France, Spain, Denmark, and Holland followed suit, and a year later America abolished the trade as well. Over the next eighty years countries began to abolish slavery altogether, and in 1865 (after the Union won the American Civil War), America became one of those countries.
Shelley, Percy Bysshe. "On Frankenstein." The Athenaeum 263 (10 Nov. 1832): 730. Rpt. in Nineteenth-