Abstract
A radical background produced Mary Shelley: she was the daughter of William Godwin and Mary Wollstonecraft. In 1814 she eloped with the married poet, Shelley, and they left England for Italy. After Harriet Shelley’s suicide in 1816, they married. As a precocious nineteen-year-old she wrote Frankenstein, or the Modern Prometheus, published 1818, variously interpreted, but remarkable as an early and dire warning of scientific invention and development unrestrained by the checks of moral considerations; at the same time it is an extravaganza of the Gothic imagination.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution.
Editor information
Copyright information
© 1989 Macmillan Publishers Limited
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Martin, B. (1989). Mary Shelley. In: Martin, B. (eds) The Nineteenth Century (1798–1900). Macmillan Anthologies of English Literature. Palgrave, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-20159-4_21
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-20159-4_21
Publisher Name: Palgrave, London
Print ISBN: 978-0-333-46479-3
Online ISBN: 978-1-349-20159-4
eBook Packages: Palgrave Literature & Performing Arts CollectionLiterature, Cultural and Media Studies (R0)