The woman responsible for creating seven novels, numerous travel books, biographical studies, stories and articles, mythological dramas and a novella, accomplished her most infamous literary feat at the age of nineteen when she wrote Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus (1818). Frankenstein is to date, one of the most treasured pieces of Gothic Fiction ever published. By 1851, the year Mary Shelley died, she was considered to be among the great writers of the time; Shelley was held as being extremely reputable and respected independent of her husband’s talent and fame.
Shelley’s parents were both influential in literary cirlces of the time. Her mother, Mary Wollstonecraft, was one of the the first feminists and made her views of sexism known when she published A Vindication of the Rights of Woman in 1792. Her father, William Godwin, was also part of the intellectual society as a political journalist and writer. Godwin became famous with the publication of An Enquiry Concerning Political Justice in 1793.
Having been essentially educated by means of her own when surrounded by members of her father’s intellectual acquaintances, Shelley was able to submerge herself in varying styles of writing. Godwin often worked alongside famous essayists, critics and poets, most notably Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Percy Bysshe Shelley, who would later become Mary’s husband.
Though she authored several works during her lifetime, Frankenstein remains her most popular piece.
“Life and death appeared to me ideal bounds, which I should first break through, and pour a torrent of light into our dark world.”
(Shelley, Frankenstein)
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