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Britain Unlimited covers
250 Great British people and what made them famous
Who was Mary Shelley?
Writer.
Date and Place of Birth:
30th August 1797, 29 The Polygon, Somers Town,
London, England.
Family Background:
The daughter of the philosopher William
Godwin and the women's reformer Mary
Wollstonecraft. Her mother died after complications with her
birth on 10th September 1797.
Education:
Local day school's in London and Miss Pertiman's
boarding School, Ramsgate.
Chronology/Biography of Mary Shelley:
1799: Samuel
Taylor Coleridge comes to stay with her father and she hears
a recital of "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner" for the
first time.
1801: Her father
remarries to Mrs Mary Jane Clairemont.
1803: Anthony Carlisle
visits her father and recounts experiments which had been done to
the bodies of executed prisoners at Newgate. Electricity had been
passed through the corpses to make them move. Also present were
Humphrey Davy, Charles
Lamb and S.T. Coleridge.
1806: Hides under
the sofa to listen to Coleridge reciting
"The Rime of the Ancient Mariner".
1807: Leaves the
Polygon (and its close proximity to her mother's grave) for 41 Skinner
Street where her father sets up as a bookseller. The house is near
the abbatoirs for Fleet Street market as well as Newgate Prison.
1811: Sent to Ramsgate
for her health.
1812: Her father
takes her to a Coleridge recital where
she sees Lord Byron in the audience. Sent
to Broughty Ferry near Dundee in Scotland again for her health.
1814: (5th May)
Meets Percy Bysshe Shelley. for
the first time at Skinner Street. (27th June). Makes love to Shelley
in the graveyard at St. Pancras. (28th July) Leaves for France with
Shelley and Jane Clairemont.
Mary's family disown her. They all travel to Paris and then on to
Basle and Lucerne in Switzerland, eventually returning to England
with no money left. They take a series of lodgings in St. Pancras
and Knightsbridge.
1815: (22nd February)
Birth of Mary Shelley's first child Clara who died on 6th March.
Spend the summer in Torquay then Windsor. Claire Clairemont goes
to stay in the cottage in Lynmouth, Devon where Shelley and Harriet
had stayed in 1812. She suspects she is pregnant.
Villa Diodati near Lake Geneva
where Byron, Shelley
and Mary Shelley entertained each other
with horror stories and Frankenstein was "born
(© Anthony Blagg)
1816: (24th January)
Birth of her second child, christened William Godwin Shelley. Claire
meets Byron. Mary, Claire, Shelley
and Byron all decide to go to Switzerland.
(May) They arrive in Geneva and lodge at the Hotel D'Angleterre.
They then move on to the Maison Chapus near Coligny. John Polidori
probably falls in love with Mary. Byron
is now lodging separately at the Villa Diodati on the shores of
Lake Geneva where the others make frequent visits. (15th June) Byron
suggests a short horror story competition to pass the time away
during a storm. Mary realises the vision of Frankenstein for the
first time. (26th August) She writes out the first draft of Frankenstein,
although she did not fully complete the story until 16th September.
(September) Returns to England and stays at Bath at 5 Abbey Churchyard
next to the Pump Rooms. Claire is now expecting Byron's
baby. (9th October) Mary's stepsister Fanny commits suicide at the
Mackworth Arms, Swansea. (December) Shelley's wife Harriet kills
herself in the serpentine in London and is found to have been pregnant.
Hotel D'Angleterre in Geneva on the lake shore where Mary
wrote Frankenstein
(© Anthony Blagg)
1817: Shelley seeks
custody of his children Charles and Ianthe but fails. (13th January)
Claire gives birth to a child called Alba. Mary and Shelley,
now married move to Albion House Marlowe, Buckinghamshire. (2nd
September) Gives birth to her third child Clara.
1818: (September
) Clara dies in Venice.
1819: (7th June)
Second Child William died in Rome of malaria. (12th November) Fourth
child Percy Florence is born in Florence.
1821: Mary and Shelley
visit Byron at Ravenna. Byron
visits them at Pisa.
1822: Trelawny arrives
in Pisa. Death of Allegra on 20th April. Mary has near
fatal miscarriage. Shelley sails
to Leghorn to meet Leigh-Hunt. Sees Byron.
Shelley is drowned on the return
trip.
1823: (25th August)
Mary Shelley arrives back in England and takes lodgings in Brunswick
Square, London. A dramatisation by Richard Brinsley Peake of her
book called the "Fate of Frankenstein" is performed at
the Lyceum Theatre and English Opera House, London. She is rejected
by Sir Timothy Shelley, Percy's father, who forbids her to publish
any of Shelley's works to which she may
hold copyright and refuses to give her any financial assistance.
She is also rejected by London Society in general. Lives in a series
of lodgings in North Holborn and Kentish Town, London.
1824: At Coram's
Fields she begins transcribing Shelley's
manuscripts and hopes, to get them published. 300 copies are produced
but Sir Timothy bans their sale two months later. (9th July) Visits
the home of Edward Knatchbull where the remains of Byron
are being held three days prior to its funeral procession to Newstead
Abbey in Nottinghamshire. Mary was writing the second Volume of
the "Last Man".
1826: Assists Thomas
Moore with his projected life of Byron.
1828: Contracts
smallpox on a visit to Paris.
1829: Mary Shelley
lodges at 33 Somerset street, London and begins talking to a wide
group of literary acquaintances.
1833: Moves to Harrow
village to be near her son Percy whilst he is at school. begins
writing "Lodore" but breaks off to start "The Lives
of the Italians" which was to take five years to research and
write. She held a particular dislike for working at the King's Library
of the British Museum.
1836: Moves back
to London. (7th April) Her father Godwin
dies.
1837: Begins the
task of writing Godwin's life and editing
his papers.
1839: Prepares texts
and biographical notes for Edward Moxon's edition of Shelley's
work for which she is paid £500 pounds. This enables her to
take out a lease on a house in Putney. Sits for her portrait to
Richard Rothwell which was to be exhibited at the Royal Academy
Summer Exhibition the following year.
1840: Lodges in
Richmond before embarking on a tour of Switzerland and Italy with
her son Percy and his friend Knox. First signs in Italy of menigioma,
the disease which was later to kill her.
1843: Mary Shelley
spends a month in Paris with stepsister Claire. Lodges in Putney
on her return home to England.
1844: Sir Timothy
Shelley dies leaving Field Place to Percy and Mary. The property
was in a terrible state of repair and its costs as well as her husband's
debts left her in despair.
1845: Buys 24 Chester
Square, Belgravia.
1847: (Jan) Suffers
a prolonged bout of illness.
1848: (22nd June)
Son Percy marries Jane St. John the widow of Charles Robert St.
John the younger son of Lord Bolingbroke. The three move back to
Field Place and use Jane's money to restore it. Both women suffer
from bad health do to the dampness of the house.
1849: Jane and Percy
purchase Boscombe Lodge near Bournemouth hoping to restore Mary's
health.
1850: Mary's health
worsens and she is taken back to Chester Square in London.
1851: (23rd January)
Mary suffers a series of fits and lapses into a coma. After her
death Percy arranged for the bodies of her father Godwin
and her mother Mary Wollstonecraft
to be exhumed and reburied alongside Mary in Bournemouth. A small
museum and shrine was created at the Boscombe house to Mary and
Percy Bysshe Shelley.
Written Works:
- 1818:
“Frankenstein, or the Modern Prometheus”.
- 1819:
“Mathilda”.
- 1823:
“Valperga, or the Life and Adventures of Castruccio, Prince
of Lucca”.
- 1826:
“The Last Man”.
- 1830:
“The Fortunes of Perkin Warbeck.”
- 1832:
“Prosperine, a Mythological Drama in Two Acts.”
- 1835:
“Lodore”.
- 1837:
“Falkner”
Marriage:
30th December 1816 To Percy
Bysshe Shelley at St. Mildred’s Church, Bread Street, London.
Her father William Godwin and his wife
attend.
Date and Place of Death:
1st February 1851, Chester Square, London, England.
Age at Death:
53.
Site of Grave:
St. Peter's Church, Bournemouth, England.
Places of Interest:
DORSET:
Boscombe House Museum.
LONDON:
British Museum Library.
National Portrait Gallery.
John Murray Archive, Albemarle Street.
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