|
Mary Wollstonecraft
Shelley was born
to a life surrounded
by extraordinary
people, but beset
by tragedy..
Her mother, who
died soon after
Mary's birth, was
an active feminist
and writer, and
her atheist-anarchist
father was a philosopher
and a radical social
reformer.
Mary was raised
among the famous
friends and followers
of her father, one
of whom was the
young poet Percy
Bysshe Shelley.
Mary met the poet
when she was 16
and became his lover,
though he was still
married to another
woman.
Two years later,
while spending a
summer on the shore
of Lake Geneva with
Lord Byron and a
small group of friends,
Mary wrote the novel
Frankenstein at
the age of 18.
Soon after, Mary
and Percy were married
following the drowning
suicide of Shelley's
desponent wife.
In an ironic twist
of fate, Percy drowned
six years later
in a storm-caused
boating accident
in Italy.
Before Percy's death,
Mary had given birth
to a son and two
daughters, but only
her son, Percy,
survived childhood.
| 
