you can't make this up
pt 3 the truth is compelling enough and then some, Mary Shelley's tragic life and the impact on her writing
In Mary Shelley’s case, truth is way better than fiction.
This British girl is raised by her well-known (in literary and philosophical circles) father, who has high expectations of his daughter because of her esteemed parentage. Her mother, called the first feminist writer died when Mary was 10 days old. Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin would blame herself for society’s loss her entire life. William Godwin found himself raising his dead wife’s other child (by another man, born out of wedlock too) and infant Mary, after losing the woman he wrote a book about a year later (note 1). We know that friends and neighbours stepped in to help with the children, wet nurses were found, and ultimately his next wife assumed the running of the household (the dead former-wife’s daughters, her own kids by other men, and the child she and Godwin would have together), their business, and Godwin, from what I read.
Mary and her step-sister by marriage, who styled herself Claire/also spelled Clair and Clare later, but was Clara Mary Jane Clairmont (foreshadowing the exciting character she is in all this) were accustomed to writers visiting their home. Much fiction is written about the girls hiding behind railings and under sofas, listening to Coleridge and others. After being sent away for long periods to Dundee, Scotland, (story for another post) a little bit more mature Mary meets Percy Bysshe Shelley (and his wife) at her father’s dining table once when she is home, and again years later.
Insert Romantic era flames in the eyes, literary quality subterfuge and good old fashioned misbehaviour, and in the not too distant future teenage Mary and mid-20s-ish Percy are consummating their affair in the cemetery where Mary’s mother is buried (it may be true), and running away to Europe together (with Claire in tow.)
Digest just that little bit. And Mary has only written scribbles up until this point, as she called them. And PB Shelley hasn’t fully been disowned by his noble family.
I would challenge Jodi Picoult or Aimie K. Runyan, (note 2) to fashion a novel as compelling in plot and character as the early period of Mary Shelley’s life—influential and powerful philosopher parents, self-blame over the loss of her mother, judgmental patriarchal society, arduous travel, harrowing health risks, innocence, controversial love, no break from grief because of many deaths by suicide and tragedy, and then there were the drugs, creditors, philanderers, and cheats she was surrounded by. Juicy, right?
Oh yeh, and that dear woman gave birth to four babies and lost three darlings in their infant/toddler years, during the seven years she had with the love of her life who died too young in a sailing incident. (I have a post on this coming too.)
Facts about Mary Shelley have been fictionalized well, but then, look at the material the writers had to work with. You can’t make up plot this incredibly compelling, can you? One of my favourite renditions of Mary Shelley’s early life is by illustrator/author Lita Judge, called Mary’s Monster. Please check out the artwork here.
Fact: yes, Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin began writing Frankenstein, or The Modern Prometheus before she turned 19. (She began in June, and turned 19 in August that year, and completed the manuscript about nine months later. It was first published anonymously in January 1818.)
Fact: yes, while writing it Mary becomes pregnant (again), is mother of infant William, and relocating in Europe and the UK every couple of months as a mistress to her children’s father, poet of growing renown but compromised reputation, and still married, Percy Bysshe Shelley, when Frankenstein comes to her in a waking dream.
Fact: No, Percy did not contribute substantively to the manuscript nor was he the author. Yes, he was a first reader and made line edits, and wrote an Introduction to the 1831 edition. Thank you rigorous stylometric analyses (note 3) for providing literary authenticators with conclusive proof of this.
Truth means so much to me because I spent a life becoming brave enough to tell it, as so many memoir and nonfiction writers will also attest. For me, Mary Shelley’s craft in the structure, plot, prose, diction, format, and Gothic landscape of Frankenstein are rendered even more incredible when I look behind the book at her.
Fact: Mary had life long knowledge of alienation and abandonment and this fuelled the emotionally raw Creature storyline in Frankenstein. She was the child of broken attachment, unloved by an overbearing stepmother, sent away for a years to Dundee, and ostracized by her beloved, famous father when she became the shockingly young mistress of Shelley (a meeting William Godwin himself facilitated at his dinner table for years in order to finance his family’s existence. She was in proximity to many suicides, young tragic deaths and loss. But look what her endurance gave to the world through her writing!
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