Writers from a Writer Ep. II: Mary Shelley
- Maya Dietrich
- Feb 28
- 15 min read
Hello inquisitive readers! I got insanelyyy busy this month (working towards unattainable goals and whatnot) and really crammed this into the last few days of February, I know… the whole excuse I was trying to avoid by doing this.
Anyway, hello and welcome back to my Writers from a Writer series! Honestly, I was on the fence on who I wanted to study this month. I knew I wanted to look at someone from the Romantic era (and, no, by this I don't mean romance as a genre, I feel the need to clarify that), because, hello!, it's February. I looked at a lot of writers in preparation for this series, and the one I chose just had such an insane life I couldn't not write on it. This is a long one, so prepare yourself.
Mary Shelley, born Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin in London of 1797, was the daughter of two celebrated and radical literary thinkers - William Godwin and Mary Wollstonecraft. This theme of name repetition will be recurring (and confusing! How very gothic). But, really, with a name like that, how could she not become one of the most celebrated - and hated, I'll get to this in a minute - gothic writers of all time. I'm just going to give you a blanket preparation warning now cause this girl went through it oh my lorddd.
Okay, so, starting off with her infancy - oh yes, the tragedies start at the very beginning - barely 10 days old, Mary's mother (who is also named Mary if you can recall), died from complications during childbirth. Awesome start. When Mary (the child, not the now deceased mother), was 4 years old, her father remarried. Her stepmother - get this, ALSO named Mary - wasn't the greatest person ever, and had two kids from a previous marriage - Charles and Jane Clairemont (who became known as Claire, because they just couldn't let one of them have an easy name). This whole situation was very Jane Eyre-esque. Her stepmother was jealous of young Mary's relationship with her father (remember, she's 4 years old!), and her stepsiblings rather enjoyed teasing and ostracizing her. Her father, of course, couldn't have cared less. While Mary's childhood was marked by intellectual stimulation and privilege due to her relatively high class, it was also a very secluded time in her life, and she reflected later that she repeatedly felt misunderstood by her stepfamily, and neglected by her father. Mary (the stepmother) was clearly jealous of not only Mary (the daughter), but also Mary (the dead wife), because in 1808 she persuaded her husband to start her own publishing house - no doubt intimidated by the literary talent her stepdaughter was just beginning to foster. Funnily enough, the first story Mary Wollstonecraft ever published was through her stepmother's publishing house, when she was just 11 years old.
Things carried on like this for most of her childhood, until June 7th, 1812, when her stepmother had reached her peak of jealousy towards her stepdaughter, and sent her away to Scotland. Mary Wollstonecraft was 15 by this point, and looked more like her mother every day, not to mention the literary talent akin to both of her parents that was blossoming, as was frequently pointed out by society of the time. This directly contributed to Mary's lonely move North, where she only came back to visit her family on special occasions. I'm sure her stepmother thought this would break Mary's spirit in some way, or at the very least get rid of the annoyance she posed. Really, this worked out to Mary (the stepmother's) detriment, because young Mary reflected later that it was in the rolling hills of Scotland that her writing truly took firm hold, and if it hadn't have been for what was essentially an exile, she never would have become the writer that she did.
On a brief visit back home on November 11th of 1812, Mary met the man who would later become her husband - Percy Shelley. At this point Percy was still married to his first wife (more on this later!), but immediately took a liking to young Mary Wollstonecraft. Percy was also a growing writer, and the two immediately had a lot in common, but they didn't talk much until several years later due to Mary's staying in Scotland.
Mary Wollstonecraft stayed in Scotland for the next 2 years, returning on the cusp of turning 18, and wanting to grow her writing even more.
Here follows a brief intermission:
One thing I'd like to point out so as to reframe it, is that Mary didn't just write novels, she was also a well-respected literary critic and wrote extensive politically-charged nonfiction and travel books (of which contain some of her greatest work). This notion that writers only write one thing makes me furious. Who out there made that idea up? I'm not kidding, I want a name, so I can smack them across the back of the head for all the emotional damage their stupidity has caused. Writers are frequently exposed to SO MANY different writing styles, and I think the idea that a playwright is only a playwright, an essayist is only an essayist, and a novelist can surely only write novels, is the dumbest shit I've ever heard, and also happens to be the number one dead giveaway that you are shallow minded and take pride in the fact that you haven't picked up a book since the third grade (we can tell).
Every time I say that I want to write everything - from poems to songs to short stories to novels to yes, even the occasional essay - I always get this funny look from people. "Why could you ever possibly expect to write everything under the sun! Surely you must have to pick something specific!" Well, John, the crazy thing about writing is that as long as you can physically form words into coherent sentences (which I doubt you are able to), you can, in fact, write whatever the hell you bloody well please. And on that note, just while I have you here, why not point out the teeny tiny little fact there that you can, in fact, also write about things that are not under the sun. Why oh why do people think creativity is stagnant? The more you write, the more you learn - regardless of the genre or medium you're writing in.
Now that I've pissed some people off, here's where we reach a point in Mary's life that continues to anger people… and was also quite possibly one of the worst things she ever did, and is still highly debated…
I mentioned earlier how Percy Shelley was still married when he and Mary were introduced, which he was, to a woman named Harriet Westbrook. To properly understand this whole situation, we need to do a brief history on the (un)happy couple…
Harriet and Percy eloped in 1811, when they were both 16 years old, and together they had two kids (one in 1813, and the other about a year later). Keep in mind that Percy met Mary Wollstonecraft after he and Harriet had only been married for a year. So at the time of their meeting, Harriet and Percy were both about 17, likely expecting a child at this point, while Mary was 15. Two years later, Percy decides that he's in love with Mary, not Harriet, and elopes illegally with her (I say illegally since it technically wasn't legitimate since he was still married to Harriet… that's right, the man essentially had two wives). After this, poor Harriet is basically alone with her two kids while Percy and Mary run off together.
This situation has almost entirely been pinned on Mary, and with the whole 'other woman' conundrum she poses, it's easy to fall into that trap. While Mary most definitely wasn't completely uninvolved, we have to remember that she had been exiled to Scotland for the last 2 years, not to mention the fact that her father was basically praying she'd go away (ie get married), her stepmother is unbelievably jealous of her, and not to mention the fact that the poor girl basically has no friends or any other prospects. Marriage is her only answer. At least, that's how dire the situation probably looked to her, although now I'm sure we could point to a million other options she had, but that's with the hindsight and distance history (and knowing a person's entire life story) offers. To her, it was either this, or become obsolete (or suffer a fate much worse of some sort). On top of that, it is very likely she didn't really know the state of Harriet and Percy's marriage until it was too late. She did only meet Percy very briefly… Was Harriet there the night they first met? Was Percy already planning on leaving her and actively looking for a replacement? Did he tell Mary he was divorced? Never married? Only engaged? Who knows, maybe the proof is out there somewhere in the world, but in all likelihoods we will never know.
As for Harriet, here comes the part where I do think both Percy and Mary hold a lot of the blame. While staying with their close writing friends (more on that later), they returned to London to learn that Harriet had drowned herself, leaving Percy free to marry (because, yes, this whole time he was still legally married to Harriet!).
Upon hearing this information? Well it's obvious, isn't it! Percy and Mary went down to the court house and got hitched! In actuality, I think a little planning was involved, but not much. Also, Mary's first child was born in 1815… (out of wedlock!). This automatically meant that Mary, in status, became the woman she most hated… her stepmother. Percy did contest for legal guardianship of his two kids with Harriet, but lost the legal battle to the kids' maternal grandparents (the court ruled him an unfit father… wonder why). Harriet and Percy's youngest - and only son - Charles died when he was 12, while their daughter - Ianthe - survived to adulthood.
So, yes, together, Percy and Mary definitely played a vital role in Harriet's suicide. And it seems that they really didn't show much remorse for it. However, this very dark and morbid theme common to Mary's life definitely influenced her writing, so maybe she did feel at least a little bad.
Back to where we left off…
1814, when Mary and Percy first 'eloped,' he really encouraged her writing, and they were both burgeoning writers in the public eye. They decided to travel together, and brought a box of Mary's writing with them, which was unfortunately lost in Paris. It was on this travel-spree that Mary became pregnant, and gave birth prematurely to a daughter, unnamed, who barely survived a month.
Shortly after this tragedy, the "Year Without a Summer," (aka 1816) raged on. A very brief history of Mt. Tambora:
Located in Indonesia, Mt. Tambora is an active stratovolcano that famously exploded in April of 1815. It's the cause of the largest and most destructive volcanic explosion in recorded history, ejecting over 150km of volcanic material, killing over 90,000 people, and caused catastrophic global climate disruption, sending Mary's familiar surroundings into a frigid, dank, and barren landscape.
To escape the cold (because they could), the Shelley's moved to a summer house in Geneva, Switzerland, called the Villa Diodati.
With them came their two good friends Lord Byron and John Polidori, as well as Mary's stepsister Claire (technically Jane, if you'll remember). Now we get into the nitty gritty…
It was a dark and stormy night (literally, because every night that year was), and 5 friends gathered round the fire, swapping horror stories and enchanting tales. Shadows fill the room, the fire blazes in the hearth, when all of a sudden an idea is struck. It's alive! Lord Byron stands before his friends, and challenges them each to write a ghost story. Mary wracked her brain, thought about the most terrifying thing she could, and eventually settled on man itself. A story came to her, one of a mad scientist who took his talents too far. A shell of a man is born, a human carcass rises from the ashes and the air reeks of electric fumes. Thunder crackles and!-
Well, she hadn't finished the novel yet, just wrote a little short story with the basic idea.
Now might be a good time to let you know that if you haven't read Frankenstein, I highly recommend it. A life filled with tragedy before and after are encapsulated in what Mary didn't even consider her greatest work.
Frankenstein or The Modern Prometheus was published in 1818, when Mary was 21. I mentioned briefly that once they returned from Switzerland, Percy and Mary got properly married, but the couple also moved to Italy shortly after where their next two children both died under the age of 5. So basically she was just dealt tragedy after tragedy (I told you her life was crazy) and ON TOP OF THAT guess who died next? No, seriously, was this girl cursed? Did the ghost of Harriet come back to haunt her? Because Percy was the next to go! And guess how he died. No, really, guess, because this whole haunting theory may actually prove to be true because he DROWNED while on his yacht off the coast of Italy. Talk about a revenge story…
Mary was of course distraught, and also now without the protection financially and publicly a husband offers a woman. She had given birth to her final child, a son, in 1819, and named him Percy (because she just had to keep the repeating names thing going… and you thought we were clear of that), while the husband Percy died in 1822. It is also a bit of an urban legend that she kept his heart in a box after his death. In reality, she did keep a piece of something in a box until her death, but whether it was actually his heart is up for debate. You see, after his body was cremated on the beach
his heart reportedly wouldn't burn, and Mary was given what they all thought was his heart, but was actually just a piece of calcified… something. It may have been his heart, but could have been a piece of his liver, which also apparently would not burn. This was likely because he had tuberculosis in his lifetime, and that mixed with the saltwater to calcify his organs.
There's a lot more to her life, and I encourage you to check the links below for more info, but unfortunately I can't cover every minute detail.
Overall, I don't think it's a reach to suggest that the death of her mother while she was still an infant, the emotional abuse and neglect she endured from her stepmother and father, her partial role in her husband's ex-wife's suicide, and the premature deaths of three out of four of her children all impacted her writing, which rather suddenly switched to the gothic semi-body-horror found in Frankenstein, making her an extraordinarily talented young woman who wrote from her very soul some of the vilest thoughts and paradox's found within modern society, even if she remains a controversial figure.
Ok, now for mine…
I wanted to write a piece that focuses on a ghost (since Frankenstein was inspired by German ghost stories), but I was also fascinated by Mary's time at the Villa Diodati. I find old homes in general so interesting - I even wrote an essay last semester on the role of haunted houses - and the evolution of how that classic, old, haunted, creaking-in-the-wind house came to be is actually really fascinating.
I was definitely inspired by the absurdity of Mary's life, and am especially interested in the long-lasting association she has with Harriet. The idea of being haunted is extremely elusive to me, and it always gives me a chilled, thrilling little feeling (especially when it's written as an act of revenge by a lover scorned). I also wanted to write something a little mind-bendy terrifying in the way that Frankenstein is. It's really a horror about the fine line between obsession and passion (which at some point I'd like to write more in-depth on!). For now, enjoy this rather disturbing piece I wrote in 2 hours this afternoon lmaoo, that focuses on the story of a ghost enacting revenge…
The Woman in the Window
In a house at the end of a long cobble-stoned drive, there stands a woman in the window. She is dressed in a crisp white long sleeve that is tucked into a deep purple skirt, which cinches slightly at the waist. She has dark brown hair, piled and scooped into a braided bun at the base of her skull, and if she were still living, the crisp November air blowing through the crack in the window would ruffle the straggly pieces loosed from her braid. She floats ever so slightly above the ground, where her black-heeled shoes make it look like she's a child sitting in a chair, legs too short to touch the dusty attic floor.
She is watching a couple pull into the drive of her grand, brick-walled mansion nestled in Delamere Forest, just off the shore of Lake Ghost - the irony is not lost on her.
"Honey, did you remember to bring my old little music box?"
A woman is stepping out of a little black 1925 Ford Model T - ghosts get good at learning modern things, they're forever stuck learning, actually.
"What? Arghh!-"
A man, likely the woman's husband, smacks his head on the car door, reaching in the backseat for a little bundle of hand-knit blankets, which stirs, revealing a small, round, pink face of a baby.
The ghost had a child, she recalled. A long time ago.
She floats away from her watchful tower, and meets the young family in the foyer. She likes this part. Their hope, expectancy. She likes their confusion, too.
The man puts his arm around his wife, two suitcases held in his other hand, and she with the resting baby.
Welcome home, the ghost thinks. We're delighted to have you.
"Oh hello, yes, hello. Can you say: 'house'? There you go, come on, house, ho-o-o-ouse. Can you say it? Oh, can you?"
Grace is holding her baby up to the window, letting the soft afternoon sunlight drift lazily onto her baby's face, while the movers pull into the drive.
"Oh, sweetie," she says, pulling her baby to her chest. "I hope you like it here."
The door slams shut.
"Richard? Rick, was that you?"
Grace steps toward the door, wood floors creaking under her footsteps. She grabs the steel brass doorknob and, twisting it open, sighs deeply with relief at the sight of the empty hall. Suddenly, the doorknob slips from her grasp, and the door slams shut again. The baby starts to cry.
"Oh, sweetie. Oh, it's alright. Richard? Rich-!"
A lullaby begins to fill the room.
Dun dun dun, dum dum dum dum dun,
Pop goes the weasel.
The song stops, and Grace walks toward the sound, or at least, where it sounded as if the music originated.
Her hands are clasping her crying baby tightly when-
the window shatters!
Glass sprays into the room as Grace screams, a cold and violent wind shoving her towards the break in the wall where the window used to stand. It forces the door open again, and blows shards of glass all the way out into the hall.
Grace is nearly thrust out, but with her open hand she grips the glass-ridden side in the nick of time.
Wind continues to storm around her, pushing and pulling in a swirling dance towards the shattered window.
Grace pulls her baby in close and holds on for dear life… when the storm suddenly stops.
"Richard?!?" She rushes for the door, crushing glass beneath her feet as the last remnants of wind softly blow the shards down the stairs. "Richard!"
"What? What?"
Her husband catches her just as she reaches the final step.
"There's something up there. Richard-" She was steadying herself on his arm with one hand, her baby still wailing in the other.
"Alright, alright," he tried to comfort her, "are you sure?"
She slaps his arm. "Yes I'm sure."
"Well, I didn't hear anything."
"What?" Grace froze. "How could you not have heard that?"
She looked back up the stairs, only to see dusty wood floors, completely void of glass.
The steel blue November sky was fading into a glow of pinks and golds as Richard looked out onto the gardens.
He was standing in the drawing room, which momentarily stood empty, save for a few wooden chairs and a dusty rug.
The lighted fireplace cast a warm glimmer around the whole space, and he smiled at the thought of his wife's antics.
Richard admired the home, and chuckled slightly at how long it had sat on the market, and the idiot that had sold it to him for half price. The insanities seemed to touch all that entered, but it was just a house, he had decided. An ordinary, spectacular, but nonetheless inanimate, home.
The grate in the fireplace creaked. Richard turned at the sound, and saw that bright orange flames were gliding angelically across the wood floors.
He dashed towards them, but stopped in his tracks when the fire burst up and out of the fireplace, brick exploding and slamming back down to the floor.
He ducked before running to the staircase.
"Grace! Grace!"
He took the stairs two at a time, but slipped before he could reach the top.
His hand caught in the banister as he fell, leaving his face completely unguarded as his chin slammed into the sturdy stairs.
He glanced back to see what he'd slipped on, and found… blood.
He heard a faint swinging and looked up in horror to see Grace dangling by a thick rope, tied around her soft neck. Her extremities had been sliced and drained of life onto the stairs. He was frozen in fear, and saw his sweet baby… little Lenora, dead cold, like a little stone, cradled in her mother's inhumanly bent arms.
He reached for them, "Grace. Oh, my Grace."
Dun dun dun, dun dum dum dum dun-
He heard it, that little music box.
Pop goes the weasel.
The force of every door in the house slamming open thrust him back, and he fell, free-fall, down the stairs.
Wind rushed in his ears, and his head rang from the fall.
Leave this place.
He clasped his hands to his ears and screamed at the voice pounding through his head.
It split his skull, burst his ear drums, his own blood mixing with his wife's as it dripped down his elbows.
The pressure built, the wind continuing as the very foundations shook.
And then it stopped. Just as suddenly as it had started.
Richard was back at the window, looking out at the setting sun and the gardens.
The fire gently burned in the hearth, and the stairs were just as dry as before his nightmarish journey had started.
He ran up them, and found Grace sound asleep, breathing deeply, their baby resting peacefully on her chest.
The woman in the window watched the 1925 black Ford Model T pull into the gravel drive, her translucent body floating just above the floor.
"Richard, you forgot my little music box!"
"Are you su- Arrgh!"
The couple yammered on.
Oh, how she loved visitors.
Okay, that's it for my disturbing little story that I wrote the day I wanted to have this done by... oops.
Anyway, I hope it wasn't too horrible, but that's it for now (hopefully next month's writer will be less terror-invoking, but who knows, I haven't picked who I'll be studying yet). So long for now!
For more information on Mary Shelley's life and writings, check out these links, (none of which are scholarly articles, just fun second-hand reading):
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