Mary Shelley
English novelist
Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley was an English novelist who wrote the Gothic novel Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus, which is considered an early example of science fiction. She also edited and promoted the works of her husband, the Romantic poet and philosopher Percy Bysshe Shelley. Wikipedia
Born: August 30, 1797, Somers Town, London, United Kingdom
Died: February 1, 1851, Chester Square, London, United Kingdom
Spouse: Percy Bysshe Shelley (m. 1816–1822)
Children: Percy Florence Shelley, Clara Everina Shelley, William Shelley
Parents: Mary Wollstonecraft, William Godwin (both her parents very influential writers—mother died from complications during Mary’s birth)
Percy Bysshe Shelley was one of the major English Romantic poets. American literary critic Harold Bloom describes him as "a superb craftsman, a lyric poet without rival, and surely one of the most advanced sceptical intellects ever to write a poem." Wikipedia
Born: August 4, 1792, Horsham, United Kingdom
Died: July 8, 1822, Lerici, Italy
Spouse: Mary Shelley (m. 1816–1822), Harriet Westbrook (m. 1811–1816)
Children: Percy Florence Shelley, William Shelley, Clara Everina Shelley, Ianthe Eliza Shelley
George Gordon Byron, 6th Baron Byron, FRS, simply known as Lord Byron, was an English poet and peer. One of the leading figures of the Romantic movement, Byron is regarded as one of the greatest English poets. He remains widely read and influential.Wikipedia
Born: January 22, 1788, London, United Kingdom
Died: April 19, 1824, Missolonghi, Greece
Full name: George Gordon Byron, 6th Baron Byron
Children: Ada Lovelace, Allegra Byron (his daughter, Ada, was basically a synchromystic and invented computer coding)
Lake Geneva and Frankenstein
In May 1816, Mary Godwin, Percy Shelley, and their son travelled to Geneva with Claire Clairmont. They planned to spend the summer with the poet Lord Byron, whose recent affair with Claire had left her pregnant.[54] In History of a Six Weeks’ Tour through a part of France, Switzerland, Germany and Holland (1817), she describes the particularly desolate landscape in crossing from France into Switzerland.[55]
The party arrived in Geneva on 14 May 1816, where Mary called herself "Mrs Shelley". Byron joined them on 25 May, with his young physician, John William Polidori,[56] and rented the Villa Diodati, close to Lake Geneva at the village of Cologny; Percy Shelley rented a smaller building called Maison Chapuis on the waterfront nearby.[57] They spent their time writing, boating on the lake, and talking late into the night.[58]
"It proved a wet, ungenial summer", Mary Shelley remembered in 1831, "and incessant rain often confined us for days to the house".[59][note 5] Sitting around a log fire at Byron's villa, the company amused themselves with German ghost stories, which prompted Byron to propose that they "each write a ghost story".[60][61] Unable to think of a story, young Mary Godwin became anxious: "Have you thought of a story? I was asked each morning, and each morning I was forced to reply with a mortifying negative."[62] During one mid-June evening, the discussions turned to the nature of the principle of life. "Perhaps a corpse would be re-animated", Mary noted; "galvanism had given token of such things".[63] It was after midnight before they retired, and unable to sleep, she became possessed by her imagination as she beheld the grim terrors of her "waking dream", her ghost story:[64]
I saw the pale student of unhallowed arts kneeling beside the thing he had put together. I saw the hideous phantasm of a man stretched out, and then, on the working of some powerful engine, show signs of life, and stir with an uneasy, half vital motion. Frightful must it be; for supremely frightful would be the effect of any human endeavour to mock the stupendous mechanism of the Creator of the world.[65][note 6]
History of a Six Weeks' Tour (1817)
Mathilda (1819)
Valperga; or, The Life and Adventures of Castruccio, Prince of Lucca (1823)
Posthumous Poems of Percy Bysshe Shelley (1824)
The Last Man (1826)
Lodore (1835)
Falkner (1837)
The Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley (1839)
Contributions to Lives of the Most Eminent Literary and Scientific Men (1835–39), part of Lardner's Cabinet Cyclopaedia
Rambles in Germany and Italy in 1840, 1842, and 1843 (1844)
Authorship of Frankenstein
While her husband Percy encouraged her writing, the extent of Percy's contribution to the novel is unknown and has been argued over by readers and critics.[68] Mary Shelley wrote, "I certainly did not owe the suggestion of one incident, nor scarcely of one train of feeling, to my husband, and yet but for his incitement, it would never have taken the form in which it was presented to the world." She wrote that the preface to the first edition was Percy's work "as far as I can recollect." There are differences in the 1818, 1823 and 1831 editions, which have been attributed to Percy's editing. James Rieger concluded Percy's "assistance at every point in the book's manufacture was so extensive that one hardly knows whether to regard him as editor or minor collaborator", while Anne K. Mellor later argued Percy only "made many technical corrections and several times clarified the narrative and thematic continuity of the text."[69] Charles E. Robinson, editor of a facsimile edition of the Frankenstein manuscripts, concluded that Percy's contributions to the book "were no more than what most publishers' editors have provided new (or old) authors or, in fact, what colleagues have provided to each other after reading each other's works in progress."[70]
Writing on the 200th anniversary of Frankenstein, literary scholar and poet Fiona Sampson asked, "Why hasn't Mary Shelley gotten the respect she deserves?"[71] She noted that "In recent years Percy's corrections, visible in the Frankenstein notebooks held at the Bodleian Library in Oxford, have been seized on as evidence that he must have at least co-authored the novel. In fact, when I examined the notebooks myself, I realized that Percy did rather less than any line editor working in publishing today."[72] Sampson published her findings in In Search of Mary Shelley (2018), one of many biographies written about Shelley.
Shelley completed her writing in April/May 1817, and Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus was published on 1 January 1818[61] by the small London publishing house Lackington, Hughes, Harding, Mavor, & Jones.[62][63] It was issued anonymously, with a preface written for Mary by Percy Bysshe Shelley and with a dedication to philosopher William Godwin, her father. It was published in an edition of just 500 copies in three volumes, the standard "triple-decker" format for 19th-century first editions.
A French translation (Frankenstein: ou le Prométhée Moderne, translated by Jules Saladin) appeared as early as 1821. The second English edition of Frankenstein was published on 11 August 1823 in two volumes (by G. and W. B. Whittaker) following the success of the stage play Presumption; or, the Fate of Frankenstein by Richard Brinsley Peake.[64] This edition credited Mary Shelley as the book's author on its title page.
On 31 October 1831, the first "popular" edition in one volume appeared, published by Henry Colburn & Richard Bentley.[65] This edition was heavily revised by Mary Shelley, partially to make the story less radical. It included a lengthy new preface by the author, presenting a somewhat embellished version of the genesis of the story. This edition is the one most widely published and read now, although a few editions follow the 1818 text.[66] Some scholars prefer the original version, arguing that it preserves the spirit of Mary Shelley's vision (see Anne K. Mellor's "Choosing a Text of Frankenstein to Teach" in the W. W. Norton Critical edition).
Dates: (Sex, Drugs, & Chamber Music)
Mary Shelly: 1797-1851
Percy Shelly: 1792-1822
Lord Byron: 1788-1824
Beethoven: 1770-1827
Chopin: 1810-1849
Liszt: 1811-1886
Berlioz: 1803-1869
At a villa overlooking Lake Geneva in the idyllic summer of 1816, Lord Byron (Hugh Grant) suggests that each of his friends write a story of horrors. Young Mary Wollstonecraft (Lizzy McInnerny) is inspired to begin her novel "Frankenstein." But as the lives of her new husband, Percy Bysshe Shelley (Valentine Pelka), and her stepsister, Claire Clairmont (Elizabeth Hurley), who has had Lord Byron's child, fall apart, Mary begins to imagine that the monster she created is behind their troubles.Release date: October 26, 1988 (Spain)Director: Gonzalo SuárezMusic by: Alejandro MassóProduction company: Ditirambo Films
Composer Frédéric Chopin (Hugh Grant) is living in France, and his health is slowly deteriorating. Author Baroness Amantine-Lucile-Aurore Dupin (Judy Davis), who writes under the name George Sand, admires Chopin from afar and makes plans to meet the composer. After being advised to stay away from Chopin, Sand shows up at a party he is attending and observes his fragile health. While Chopin tries to resist Sand, he is intrigued by a love letter written by an unknown admirer.Release date: May 1991 (USA)Director: James LapineMusic by: Frédéric Chopin; Franz Liszt; Ludwig van BeethovenProduction company: Ariane Films
Delacroix (1798-1863)
(George Sand & Chopin by Delacroix)
Manet (1832-1883)
—was reminded of Manet but he’s not in those Hugh Grant films . . .
The Nightmare likely influenced Mary Shelley in a scene from her famous Gothic novel Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus (1818). Shelley would have been familiar with the painting; her parents, Mary Wollstonecraft and William Godwin, knew Fuseli. The iconic imagery associated with the Creature's murder of the protagonist Victor's wife seems to draw from the canvas: "She was there, lifeless and inanimate, thrown across the bed, her head hanging down, and her pale and distorted features half covered by hair."[11] The novel and Fuseli's biography share a parallel theme: just as Fuseli's incubus is infused with the artist's emotions in seeing Landholdt marry another man, Shelley's monster promises to get revenge on Victor on the night of his wedding. Like Frankenstein's monster, Fuseli's demon symbolically seeks to forestall a marriage.[11]
Dissecting ‘Mary Shelley’: How Accurate Is the Biopic?
UCLA professor and researcher Anne K. Mellor dissects biopic 'Mary Shelley,' calling it a "missed opportunity" for an accurate portrayal.
Though crediting the film for being “beautifully made” and well-cast (with Elle Fanning as Shelley), Mellor noted that the film details an “off the rails” interpretation of the author’s life.
Despite her opinion of faulty storytelling, the Shelley expert is hopeful that the film could have a rewarding outcome. “People would begin to come back to the novel, which the movie does a good job leading into.” Though speaking as a scholar, Mellor quipped, “Read the first edition!” (1818)
The Romantic movement was an artistic, literary, and intellectual movement that originated in the second half of the 18th century in Europe and strengthened in reaction to the Industrial Revolution (Encyclopædia Britannica n.d.). In part, it was a revolt against social and political norms of the Age of Enlightenment and a reaction against the scientific rationalization of nature (Casey 2008). It was embodied most strongly in the visual arts, music, and literature, but had a major impact on historiography (Levin 1959,[page needed]) and education (Gutek 1995, 220–54), and was in turn influenced by developments in natural history (Nichols 2005, 308–309).
One of the first significant applications of the term to music was in 1789, in the Mémoires by the Frenchman André Grétry, but it was E. T. A. Hoffmann who really established the principles of musical romanticism, in a lengthy review of Ludwig van Beethoven's Fifth Symphonypublished in 1810, and in an 1813 article on Beethoven's instrumental music. In the first of these essays Hoffmann traced the beginnings of musical Romanticism to the later works of Haydn and Mozart. It was Hoffmann's fusion of ideas already associated with the term "Romantic", used in opposition to the restraint and formality of Classical models, that elevated music, and especially instrumental music, to a position of pre-eminence in Romanticism as the art most suited to the expression of emotions. It was also through the writings of Hoffmann and other German authors that German music was brought to the centre of musical Romanticism (Samson 2001).