Introduction


Mary Shelley
Just as her fictional scientist found his name forever fused with the name of his greatest creation, so Mary Shelley is forever associated with her greatest creation: her novel Frankenstein. And why not? Shelly wrote it at an amazingly young age (19!), and it is one of the most influential novels of the last two centuries. However, two things are even more impressive than Shelley's age when she wrote it: that the creature she created has moved into our shared reference (like a modern myth), and that her work could speak to so many people and still be so deeply personal as the novel was to her. Frankenstein is rooted in Shelley's life, her family, her philosophies, and her loves.

Essential Facts

  1. Shelley’s mother, Mary Wollstonecraft, was an influential feminist. Her A Vindication of the Rights of Women (1792) helped found the modern feminist movement and provided much of its early philosophical foundation.
  2. Mary Wollstonecraft died due to complications from giving birth to her daughter Mary. As a result, though she eventually had a stepmother, Mary Shelley was essentially motherless and raised by an intellectual...much like Victor Frankenstein and his monster.
  3. Shelley’s father, William Godwin, was a noted political philosopher as well as a novelist. There are marked similarities between the plot and structure of Godwin’s novel Caleb Williams and Shelley’s Frankenstein.
  4. When she was 16, Mary married Percy Bysshe Shelley, one of the greatest Romantic poets of all time. (They eloped.) Percy Shelley was a freethinker and a radical. He helped Mary complete her education...and tried to make her part of a free love community in which several people would share partners.
  5. The idea for Frankenstein came to Mary Shelley as the result of a ghost story contest between Mary, her husband, the poet Lord Byron, and Dr. John Polidori. It came to her in a dream.
 

Recommended Resources

  1. Frankenstein Lesson Plan
  2. Frankenstein Study Guide (eNotes)
  3. Shelley, Mary Wollstonecraft | A. A. Markley (Essay Date 1997): Feminism in Literature

All Resources

Display as: Categories, List
  1. Frankenstein Lesson Plan
  2. Frankenstein Review - Mary Godwin
  3. Frankenstein Review - Mary Godwin
  4. Frankenstein Study Guide (eNotes)
  5. Frankenstein Summary - Mary Godwin
  6. Frankenstein Summary - Mary Godwin
  7. Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus Summary / Study Guide
  8. Mary Shelley Review - Emily W. Sunstein
  9. Mary Shelley Review - Muriel Sarah Camberg
  10. Mary Shelley's Frankenstein: Videohound Movie Retriever
  11. Mary Wollstonecraft Biography / Profile
  12. Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley Biography
  13. Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley Biography / Profile
  14. Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley Biography / Profile
  15. Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley Biography / Profile
  16. Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley Mathilda Criticism
  17. Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley Mathilda Criticism | Audra Dibert Himes (essay Date 1997)
  18. Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley Mathilda Criticism | Margaret Davenport Garrett (essay Date 1996)
  19. Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley Mathilda Criticism | William D. Brewer (essay Date 1994)
  20. Shelley's Mary: A Life of Mary Godwin Shelley Summary / Study Guide
  21. Shelley, Mary Wollstonecraft (1797 - 1851) | Diane Long Hoeveler (Essay Date 1997): Gothic Literature
  22. Shelley, Mary Wollstonecraft (1797 - 1851) | Fred Botting (Essay Date 2000): Gothic Literature
  23. Shelley, Mary Wollstonecraft | A. A. Markley (Essay Date 1997): Feminism in Literature
  24. Shelley, Mary Wollstonecraft: The Oxford Companion to English Literature
  25. The Modern Prometheus Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley Frankenstein; or Criticism
  26. The Modern Prometheus Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley Frankenstein; or Criticism | Anne K. Mellor (essay Date 1988)
  27. The Modern Prometheus Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley Frankenstein; or Criticism | Barbara Johnson (essay Date 1982)
  28. The Modern Prometheus Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley Frankenstein; or Criticism | Devon Hodges (essay Date 1983)
  29. The Modern Prometheus Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley Frankenstein; or Criticism | Kate Ellis (essay Date 1979)
  30. The Oxford Companion to English Literature Article on Mary Shelley
  31. The Oxford Companion to English Literature Article on Maya Angelou
  32. The Woman Who Created Frankenstein Summary - Janet Harris