Mary Shelley

Mary Shelley

Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley (August 30, 1797–February 1, 1851) was an English writer who is, perhaps, equally-famously remembered as the wife of Romantic poet Percy Bysshe Shelley and as the author of Frankenstein, or The Modern Prometheus.

Biography

Mary Shelley was born on August 30, 1797 in London, England, the only daughter of Mary Wollstonecraft and the famous liberal philosopher, anarchic journalist and atheist dissenter, William Godwin.

She met Percy Bysshe Shelley, a free-thinker like her father, on June 26, 1814 at her mother's gravestone. They eloped to France a month later, on July 27, with Mary's stepsister, Jane Clairmont. This was the poet's second elopement and, later, second marriage (his first wife, Harriet Westbrook committing suicide in 1816).
Mary Shelley

Percy Shelley is renowned for his deep desire for 'true love' in his life. He was, evidently, more than satisfied with his young bride, exultant that she was "one who can feel poetry and understand philosophy".