Happy spooky season, readers! So in the spirit of this lovely time of year, I wanted someone who not only did incredible things but also was a little…dark. A little creepy. So, get your pumpkin spice latte, curl up in front of the fire, turn the lights down low, and prepare yourself for the tale of Mary Shelley, queen of the goths!
Early Life
Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin was born on August 30, 1797, in London. Her mother, noted author and women’s rights activist Mary Wollstonecraft, died shortly after Mary’s birth, leaving her with a bereft father, William Godwin. Mary loved her father, who doted on her and constantly shared memories of her mother with her. However, William was consistently in debt and struggled to raise 2 daughters on his own (the other daughter was Fanny Imlay, Wollstonecraft’s daughter with Gilbert Imlay. So William raised a child that wasn’t even his own. What a cool guy!). When Mary was around 4, William married Mary Jane Clairmont, who brought 2 children of her own: Charles and Clara (who went by Clair. As in Clair Clairmont. I like to think she thought that was hilarious). While Mary did not get along well with her stepmother, she and Clair became almost inseparable and would remain close for the rest of their lives.
While constantly in debt and facing financial ruin, William encouraged his children to learn everything they could; he would take them on educational trips, let them read from his personal library, and introduced them to the big intellectuals of the time, including Francis Place and Samuel Taylor Coleridge. At 15, she was sent to stay with radical thinker William Baxter in Scotland, where Godwin believed she would learn more about radical, dissenting politics (which at the time included things like being against slavery and that women had rights. Pretty basic to us, but back then, whoo baby!). She returned home that winter and went back in the summer of 1813.
Whirlwind Romance
It was in between these Scotland trips that Mary met and fell pretty hard for Percy Bysshe Shelley, a wealthy aristocrat whose ideas were so radical (like wanting to donate some of their wealth to the disadvantaged, how scandalous!) his family practically disowned him. Mary fell for him, and fell hard, despite the fact that he was still married to another woman (with whom he was estranged). Godwin was not thrilled; you see, Percy had said he’d help pay off Godwin’s debts, but when the Shelley family cut Percy off financially, he couldn’t help anymore, and Godwin felt betrayed. This threw Mary for a loop, as Percy really seemed to embody both Godwin’s and Wollstonecraft’s radical ideals. So the two would secretly meet in the cemetery at her mother’s grave, like a couple of Goth lovebirds, all dark and romantic. In June of 1814, they declared their love for each other on that grave, and legend has it, they also physically declared their love for each other (if you catch my drift) right there on Mary Wollstonecraft’s grave. What did I tell you? Queen of the Goths!
In July of 1814, Mary and Percy, along with Mary’s stepsister Clair, ran off to France to live their best lives. It did not exactly work out that well. First, France had just been ravaged by the War of 1812, and so they traveled to Switzerland, by mule, carriage, and even on foot. They were forced to turn around when they ran out of money, and by September of that year, they were back in England, where Mary found out she was pregnant. The trio got a place together, with Percy sometimes leaving for days at a time to dodge creditors. At this same time, Percy’s estranged wife gave birth to his son, Charles (before he and Mary ran off to France, he had to stay with his wife to basically secure inheritance rights for himself and the daughter they already had. Guess they weren’t that estranged, huh?). At the same time, Percy was also sleeping with Mary’s stepsister Clair.
You see, Percy, Mary, Mary’s parents, and quite a lot of people believed in the concept of free love, or that marriage was a restrictive institution bad for both men and women, as well as the wild idea that women were sexual beings who enjoyed a nice roll in the hay like men. And you thought hippies created free love, didn’t you? Percy not only enjoyed his trysts but encouraged Mary to have sexual relationships with other men. Now some believe that she may have had sexual relationships with other men, but many others believe that, while she flirted around, she was too in love with Percy to actually go through with any affairs. It doesn’t really matter much in the end; they continued to support the free love movement all their lives.
Mary gave birth to a daughter in February of 1815, who sadly died. She became very depressed, and thanks to being a bit flush with cash after the death of his grandfather, Percy took her on multiple holidays to help her recover, and by that summer, she was pregnant again, giving birth in January 1816 to a boy, William, who she nicknamed “Willmouse”, which I just find adorable.
Party at Lake Geneva and Frankenstein
So in May of 1816, Claire suggested that the three of them travel to Geneva, Switzerland to see Lord Byron, the English poet. Her motives weren’t completely unselfish; you see, at one point Claire had a tiny affair with Byron, and was keen to start things up again. It is unclear if she knew she was pregnant with his child, or if she was just craving some sexy time. Either way, Mary and Percy agreed because it was Lord freaking Byron, how could they say no? I’m sure the plan was to soak up some rays and do some swimming in beautiful Lake Geneva; that’s what I would be planning. However, due to FIVE volcanic eruptions between the years of 1808-1814, the summer of 1816 would be one of the coldest in history. It was cold, rainy, and generally gross (that’s not getting into the agricultural and economic devastation that summer caused; it was pretty rough for everyone).
So what do you do when it’s cold, dark, and rainy? Tell ghost stories, of course! Percy and Byron were both published authors at this point, while Mary and Claire had aspirations of being writers, so one night they decided to have a competition to see who could write the scariest story. Mary had some difficulty coming up with an idea; it wasn’t until one night the discussion turned to galvanism, which at the time people believed might be used to reanimate the dead. That night, she had a nightmare and began to write. Her story was about a creepy med student who built a man from dead body parts and brought him to life with electricity, but then is super creeped out by what he does (do you like my super literary analysis of one of the most important stories ever written?). This story FREAKED EVERYONE THE “F” OUT!!!!! When Percy collected his exploded brains, he encouraged Mary to turn that short story into a novel. Oh, and she was 18 years old at this time. Let that sink in: a teenager created a literary genre that we are still raving about over 200 years later!
It would take Mary 2 years to finish Frankenstein, but I’d like to stop here for a second and discuss something that scholars seem to argue about: how much Mary actually wrote of Frankenstein. See, when she published the book, she did so anonymously, with a forward from Percy. So everyone just assumed Percy wrote the book. It is known that Percy did aid Mary in writing the book; but how much? Some say he helped so much that they should both be credited as authors of the book. Some say that he did some editing (the 1818, 1823, and 1831 editions have several changes, attributed to Percy’s editing), but that hardly qualifies him to be counted as an author. Is this argument that Percy had more to do with the writing of the story because Mary was a woman? I don’t know. Maybe some of those arguments come from a deep-rooted patriarchal viewpoint; I can’t read those scholars' minds. I do know that for pretty much all of history women’s achievements have been erased or overshadowed by our male counterparts. If you have an issue with my pointing out these things, please remember that this is a feminist blog, and I’m coming from a feminist viewpoint. I’m just positing my own arguments, much like the aforementioned scholars. But I digress; this isn’t a post about Frankenstein, it’s about Mary Shelley!
Leaving England
When Mary, Percy, and Clair returned to England later in 1816, they were immediately struck by 2 very tragic deaths: First, Mary’s older half-sister Fanny Imlay took her own life to escape her unhappy life with her father and stepmother (Mary Jane Clairmont really didn’t like her stepdaughters) in October 1816, and Percy’s estranged wife, Harriet, drowned in December of that year. Percy and Mary fought to get custody of his children with Harriet. When his lawyers said they’d stand a better chance of gaining custody by being married, Percy and Mary tied the knot on December 30, 1816. This pretty great event was pretty great for a few reasons: 1) Mary was crazy in love with Percy; 2) the marriage brought Mary’s father William Godwin back into her life, and 3) Mary had recently discovered she was pregnant again. Sadly, the marriage did not help with the custody case, and Percy’s children were sent to live with another family.
1817 started out pretty great: Mary finished Frankenstein (though it wouldn’t be published until 1818) and published History of a Six Weeks’ Tour, compiled from her, Percy, and Clair’s journals of their travels from 1814-1816). She also gave birth to a baby girl, Clara. But it wasn’t all gravy; Percy had to leave home frequently to avoid creditors, and in early 1818, the Shelley family, along with Clair and her daughter, left England for Italy, with no intention of returning. In Italy, they didn’t really have a place of their own; instead, they traveled around, making friends, writing, reading, learning, and just generally living it up. Sadly, soon after they arrived, Clara died of dysentery, which drove Mary into another depression, which became fuel for her writing; she penned the novels Matilda and Valperga as well as the plays Proserpine and Midas at this time. As for Percy, he didn’t seem to have much time for Mary. He was busy flingin’ it up with several ladies. Mary, for her part, actually became quite close with his mistress Jane Williams. Like, I get that they believed in free love, and I’m not judging that; but Mary was pretty low, and where was Percy? Out there freely loving multiple women. I just think it’s kind of trash behavior.
In 1819 Mary found out she was pregnant again, which started to bring her spirits back up. However, in June of 1819, her precious Willmouse died of malaria, and she was on the verge of sinking again. The birth of Percy Florence in November helped, and things seemed fairly good for a time. In 1822, pregnant again, Mary and Percy, as well as Claire and friends Edward and Jane Williams (yes, the Jane Williams Percy was freely loving) moved to the cramped and remote Villa Magni. Mary hated it. She miscarried this child, almost dying. It was the quick thinking of Percy, who put her in an ice bath to staunch the blood, that saved Mary’s life. So that’s going to make this next paragraph really rough.
You see, Percy and Edward Williams had a sailboat built for them. At the beginning of July 1822, Percy, Edward, and a young man they had hired to help with the boat set sail down the Italian coast to Livorno. They met with some friends (including Lord Byron), had some good times, and on July 8, set sail for home. They were never seen alive again; a storm hit their boat. Mary knew something was wrong when a letter from some friends in Livorno reached her, asking Percy if they had made it home alright, due to the storm. Percy had not arrived at all. A few days later, three bodies washed up on the shore: Percy, Edward, and their boat boy (whose name was Charles).
Here’s where legend and reality tend to blur: Percy and Edward were cremated; but for some strange reason, Percy’s heart refused to burn! A friend, Leigh Hunt, grabbed the heart, and would later give it to Mary. By this point the heart had calcified. Mary kept it, wrapped in one of Percy’s last poems, Adonais, an elegy on the death of John Keats. Which, when you read the poem, makes a lot of sense. The whole poem is about loss, love, and death. Which pretty much sums up Mary and Percy’s lives together. Mary, bereft, and now the sole supporter of her one living son, also named Percy, was in a bad way. She stayed in Genoa for a year, transcribing Lord Byron’s poetry, but in 1823 she returned home to England. There, her father-in-law first tried to take Percy from her; Mary absolutely refused. So he sent them a meager allowance.
Ally, Feminist...Queer Icon?
I’d like to address a few things about Mary’s post-Percy life. First, in 1824, she moved to be closer to Percy’s former lover, Jane Williams. Letters between the two read a lot like love letters, and it really seems that the two had much more than friendly feelings towards each other. Then, in 1827, Mary played a part in a scheme to help her friend Isabel Robinson escape to France with her lover, Mary Diana Dodds (who wrote under the pseudonym “David Lyndsay” and in their private life went under the name Walter Sholto Douglas, and I think I’ve found a future blog post!) by obtaining fake passports for them. Mary also devoted much of her later years to giving aid to women society deemed “bad”, such as Georgina Paul, a woman who was forced out of her home by her husband, who accused her of adultery.
Final Years
Despite all the awesome things she did, the two most important things in Mary’s life were her son and immortalizing her deceased husband. Despite multiple offers of marriage, Mary never remarried. Instead, she lived with her son, and in 1840, when her father-in-law died and due to Percy Florence’s inheritance, the two moved to Field Place, Sussex, and finally found financial freedom. In 1848, Percy Florence married Jane Gibson St. John; Mary was close to her daughter-in-law, and the three lived happily ever after. At least they did until February 1, 1851, Mary died at age 53 from what was probably a brain tumor. It was on the first anniversary of her death that Percy Florence and Jane found Percy’s heart in Adonais, as well as locks of hair from the heads of all Mary’s deceased children. Goth to the end.
Conclusion
Phew! I feel like that post really got away from me! I wanted to go into the feminist themes of Mary’s writings, but to be fair, this is a history blog, not a literary one (an idea for the future though, huh?). Mary Shelley lived her life to the fullest; and sure, it was marred by heartache, but any life lived well does. She loved to the fullest, whether it was family, friends, lovers, or really just the human race in general. At 18, she created a literary genre, and that’s pretty dope; but she also traveled, loved, lost, suffered economic hardships, and did what she could to help other women. For my money, those are the things that make Mary Shelley worthy of this blog. I started writing this with the Halloween holiday in mind, but as I finish this post, I don’t find Mary’s story spooky at all. It’s beautiful and tragic, and sure, a little scary, but mostly inspiring. And for that, Mary Shelley, we honor you!
Sources
"Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley", https://www.britannica.com/biography/Mary-Wollstonecraft-Shelley
"Frankenstein at 200 – why hasn't Mary Shelley been given the respect she deserves?", https://www.theguardian.com/books/2018/jan/13/frankenstein-at-200-why-hasnt-mary-shelley-been-given-the-respect-she-deserves-
"Mary Shelley’s Obsession with the Cemetery", https://daily.jstor.org/mary-shelleys-obsession-with-the-cemetery/
"Famous Bis: Mary Shelley", https://bi.org/en/articles/famous-bis-mary-shelley
"Mary Shelley Kept Her Husband's Heart After His Death And Other Stories You Maybe Don't Know", https://historydaily.org/mary-shelley-facts-trivia-stories