Born August 30th, 1797 in Somers Town, London, England. Her father was a journalist, philosopher and novelist, and her mother was an educator and feminist philosopher, who died only eleven days after Marys birth, leaving her father to raise two girls. When Mary was four, her father remarried to their neighbor Mary Jane Clairmont who had two children of her own. As a child Mary was encouraged to learn and was educated by her father and a daily tutor.
At seventeen years old, Mary entered a relationship with one of her fathers political admirers, Percy Shelley, who was married at the time. Percy had been helping the Godwin family financially. When her father found out about their relationship, he tried to put an end to it, but failed when the couple escaped to France with Mary's sister Claire. When they returned, Mary was pregnant, and her father refused her any help. At the same time, Percy's wife gave birth to their son. They left with Claire to Geneva to spend the summer with Lord Byron, Claires affair. Bad weather kept them in the house, and the group spent their time reading ghost stories, which later lead to Mary writing Frankenstein. After returning to England, Percy married Mary, and lost custody of his children with his now deceased wife Harriet. They escaped to Italy to avoid creditors, and traveled around Italy happily, until the death of two of their children in 1818-1819. Spirits only rose up after the birth of her fourth child in the end of 1819. The three (Mary, Percy, and Claire) moved to Naples where their servants accused the youngest child to be the child of Claire, not Mary, however the child died in early 1820. By 1822, Mary was pregnant again and they moved to Villa Magni, on the bay of Lerici. Mary became depressed from the setting, miscarried her child, and almost died. At the same time, Percy was began spending time with another woman, Jane Williams, and other than that he spent all his time on a boat which ended up killing him in a storm. Mary moved back to England with her father until she was well enough to live on her own thanks to an allowance by Percys father. She moved back to London to be close to Jane Williams, who many believe she was in love with. There she famously rejected a marriage proposal by John Payne, saying after being married to one geneous she could only marry another. During the last twenty years of life, Mary spent time writing and editing her books, She published Perkin Warbeck in 1830, Lodore in 1835 and Falkner in 1837. She died of a brain tumor on February 1st, 1851. |