By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)
1. Her most famous novel, Frankenstein, is widely considered the first science fiction novel.
Brian Aldiss certainly thinks so. It’s worth mentioning here that two other leading science (fiction) writers, Carl Sagan and Isaac Asimov, argued that the honour of ‘first science-fiction novel’ should go to a much earlier book: Johannes Kepler’s Somnium (‘The Dream’), first published in 1634.
But Frankenstein: Or, the Modern Prometheus (Wordsworth Classics)
One of Mary Shelley’s early influences was one of Samuel Taylor Coleridge‘s poems: on 24 August 1806, Coleridge was visiting Mary’s father, William Godwin, and gave a reading of his poem ‘The Rime of the Ancient Mariner‘. Unbeknownst to the adults, a nine-year-old Mary Shelley had concealed herself behind the parlour sofa, and was transfixed by Coleridge’s poem.
2. The ultimate ‘message’ of her most famous book is often missed.
Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein may be one of the most misread novels in the whole of English literature. What is the book about? The dangers of playing God or the need to be good parents? Shelley herself came from a strong family but also an unconventional one: her mother was influential feminist philosopher Mary Wollstonecraft, and her father the radical writer William Godwin.
Mary’s mother died a few weeks after her daughter’s birth and Mary had an overly dependent, and sometimes strained, relationship with her father. Then there is her relationship with her husband, Percy Shelley, who is often seen as the model for Victor Frankenstein.
Curiously, Mary’s second novel, Mathilda (1820), would feature a father confessing incestuous desire for his daughter, followed by his death by drowning, thus prefiguring Percy Shelley’s death two years later.
Wordsworth Classics recently brought out a cheap reprint of this story along with some other Mary Shelley works: Mathilda and Other Stories (Wordsworth Classics).
3. As well as inventing modern SF with Frankenstein, Mary Shelley also wrote the first work of modern post-apocalyptic fiction.
Mary Shelley’s favourite among her own books was a later novel, The Last Man (Wordsworth Classics)
There is, as the title suggests, only one human survivor, Lionel Verney. (There are in fact a number of other characters in the novel: Lionel only becomes the last man right at the end of the narrative.) The book is the progenitor of all later stories in this vein, such as Richard Matheson’s I Am Legend and Cormac McCarthy’s The Road.
4. Shelley also wrote historical novels later in her career.
In 1830, Mary Shelley published The Fortunes of Perkin Warbeck, about the fifteenth-century pretender to the throne during Henry VII’s reign.
Mary was also a prolific writer of biographical and historical non-fiction, and wrote large portions of the Lives of the Most Eminent Literary and Scientific Men, a ten-volume sequence in a much bigger 133-volume encyclopedia, the Cabinet Cyclopaedia. Shelley continued writing until she died in 1851, probably of a brain tumour, aged just 53.
5. Frankenstein was Shelley’s first novel, but not the first book she published.
In 1817, a year before her most famous novel appeared, Mary Shelley and her husband Percy published 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 which … well, the title gives a pretty detailed account of its contents.
But we’ll add that the volume also included Percy’s celebrated poem ‘Mont Blanc’, and that besides this the book was largely Mary’s work, meaning it should take the mantle as her first book.
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I have never read the actual novel, you background story of the author and her other works has inspired me to do so…thanks
Check out the 1818 version; it’s got more umph although some of it is rambling! My copy is Broadview Literary Texts, DL Macdonald & Kathleen Scherf. It has a brilliant Introduction and fascinating Appendices!
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Reblogged this on Jude's Threshold and commented:
an intriguing lady!
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You know, I had absolutely NO idea she had written other books!
Richard Holmes’ magnificent biography of P B Shelley throws much light on Mary’s life and work. To avoid confusion ‘Mary Shelley’ should always be referred to as such. ‘Shelley’ is the poet. Mary Shelley is a literary figure with standing in her own right.
I re-read Frankenstein a few years ago and thought it was great. I love your background info!
An interesting and eye-opening article!
I do, however, think it’s a little dangerous to label her Frankenstein as the first modern SF – it seems rather arbitrary, and eclipses earlier writers such as Margaret Cavendish.
everyone seems to miss that this novel is semi autobiographical. Shelley interpretated her relationship with her mother/monster as both life and death, good and evil. She saw herself as responsible for taking a life and recreating her life without a mother. She considers herself both a being and a monster creature. The novel is filled with psychological overtures of mother-daughter relationships and guilt coupled with mourning, perseverance and acceptance.
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Happy birthday, Mary Shelley!
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I didn’t even realize she wrote more books! The Last Man sounds really interesting–I’ll have to check it out!
Very interesting👏👍Did you know she lived in Liguria ~ Italy ~ in 1822 with her husband in a beautiful villa that still exists & brings their surname? Stunning location😉to visit if you are travelling in North Italy.
This was a great read because the only thing I knew about Mary Shelley was that she wrote “Frankenstein”.