50 Fun Facts About Mary Shelley

Which two radical writers were the future author of Frankenstein's parents?

Her mother wrote A Vindication of the Rights of Woman; her father was the anarchist philosopher of Political Justice.

How soon after Mary's birth did her mother die?

The cause was puerperal fever; Godwin's frank memoir of his wife the next year scandalised readers.

In which part of London was Mary born in 1797?

She would later lodge there again with Percy after their elopement.

Whom did William Godwin marry in 1801, giving his daughter a stepmother she 'came to detest'?

Godwin's friends thought her quick-tempered, but the marriage was a success; her daughter Claire became Mary's stepsister.

Which two famous visitors to her father's house did the young Mary have access to?

Godwin gave her a governess, a daily tutor and the run of his library.

To which Scottish city was Mary sent in 1812 to stay with the radical Baxter family?

Godwin wanted her 'brought up like a philosopher, even like a cynic'; she said her true compositions were born there.

Where did Mary and Percy Shelley meet secretly and declare their love in 1814?

She was 16 and he was 21, and already married.

Whom did the eloping couple take with them to France on 28 July 1814?

Claire's mother chased them to Calais but failed to bring them home.

How did the trio travel through war-ravaged France to Switzerland in 1814?

Lack of money forced them to turn back at Lucerne; they were home in Kent by 13 September.

How premature was the baby girl Mary gave birth to in February 1815, who died days later?

She wrote to Hogg 'I am no longer a mother now', and was haunted by visions of the child.

What was the nickname of Mary's son William, born in January 1816?

He was named after her father; he died of malaria in Rome in 1819.

What was the Lake Geneva house Byron rented in 1816, site of the ghost-story contest, called?

The Shelleys rented the smaller Maison Chapouis nearby on the waterfront.

Who was the young physician who accompanied Byron to Geneva in 1816?

His own contribution to the contest became The Vampyre.

How did Mary later describe the weather during those weeks of 1816?

Rain kept the party indoors, where German ghost stories led Byron to propose that each write their own.

What scientific idea discussed at Diodati fed Mary's 'waking dream' of a reanimated corpse?

'Perhaps a corpse would be re-animated,' she noted; 'galvanism had given token of such things.'

To what time did astronomer Donald Olson date Mary's waking dream, using moon and star data?

He published the finding in 2011 after visiting the villa.

On what date was Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus first published?

It appeared anonymously with a preface by Percy and a dedication to Godwin, so readers assumed Percy wrote it.

Why did early readers assume Percy Shelley had written Frankenstein?

Charles E. Robinson later concluded Percy's edits were no more than any publisher's editor would make.

Which library holds the Frankenstein notebooks that show Percy's corrections?

Fiona Sampson examined them and found Percy 'did rather less than any line editor working in publishing today'.

How did Mary's half-sister Fanny Imlay die in October 1816?

Two months later Percy's wife Harriet was found drowned in the Serpentine; both deaths were hushed up.

Where was Percy Shelley's first wife Harriet found drowned in December 1816?

His lawyers advised him to marry Mary to strengthen his custody claim; they wed on 30 December.

At which London church did Mary and Percy marry on 30 December 1816?

Godwin, who had cut her off, gave consent and signed the register, ending the family rift.

What did the Chancery Court rule in March 1817 about Percy Shelley and his children by Harriet?

The children were placed with a clergyman's family.

What was the name of Claire Clairmont's daughter by Byron, born in January 1817?

First called Alba, she was handed over to Byron in Venice and died of typhus in a convent aged five.

Which travel book, edited by Mary from the couple's joint journal, appeared in November 1817?

It included Percy's poem 'Mont Blanc'.

Which two of Mary's children died in Italy in 1818 and 1819?

Clara died in Venice and William of malaria in Rome, leaving her 'childless and forever miserable' until Percy Florence's birth.

What was the name of Mary's only child to survive to adulthood?

Born in November 1819, he went to Harrow and Cambridge but 'showed no sign of his parents' gifts'.

Which novella about a father's incestuous love for his daughter did Mary write in Italy to cope with grief?

It began as The Fields of Fancy; she also wrote the plays Proserpine and Midas there.

In which Italian city did Percy Shelley register a mystery baby, Elena Adelaide, as his child by Mary?

Mary later called Naples 'a paradise inhabited by devils'; the one certainty is that she was not the mother.

How did Percy save Mary's life when she miscarried at Villa Magni in June 1822?

The doctor later told him the ice stanched the bleeding and saved her.

Near which town did Percy Shelley's body wash ashore after his boat sank in July 1822?

Trelawny, Byron and Leigh Hunt cremated the corpse on the beach.

Who sailed with Percy Shelley on his fatal final voyage from Livorno?

They had been discussing the radical magazine The Liberal with Byron and Hunt.

How did Sir Timothy Shelley, Percy's father, deal with his widowed daughter-in-law?

He threatened to stop her allowance if any biography of Percy appeared.

In 1823 Mary saw the first stage adaptation of her novel at the English Opera House. What was it called?

Its success prompted a second printing of the novel and a rash of imitations.

Which American actor proposed to Mary in 1826, and was refused?

She said that having married one genius she could only marry another; Payne tried to talk Washington Irving into proposing instead.

What did Mary obtain in 1827 so Isabel Robinson and Mary Diana Dods could live in France as a couple?

Dods, who wrote as David Lyndsay, took the identity of Walter Sholto Douglas.

Which disease did Mary catch in Paris in 1828, recovering 'unscarred but without her youthful beauty'?

She had been visiting the Douglases when she fell ill.

For how much did Mary sell the copyright of the revised Frankenstein to Colburn and Bentley in 1830?

It went into their new Standard Novels series; the 1831 edition carries her famous introduction.

Which apocalyptic novel of 1826 features portraits of Byron and Percy Shelley as Lord Raymond and Adrian?

Adrian dies when his boat sinks in a storm; she imagined Windsor as a Garden of Eden in the book.

For which reference work did Mary Shelley write lives of Italian, Spanish, Portuguese and French authors?

She contributed five volumes between 1829 and 1846.

Which Shelley poem did publisher Edward Moxon want to bowdlerise for the 1839 collected edition?

Trelawny later raged at her for omitting its atheistic section.

To which school did Mary send her son, moving nearby herself to avoid boarding fees?

He went on to Trinity College, Cambridge.

How old was Sir Timothy Shelley when he finally died in 1844, making Mary financially independent?

Mary said he fell 'from the stalk like an overblown flower'.

How many separate blackmailers targeted Mary in the mid-1840s?

An Italian exile, a man posing as Byron's son, and Percy's cousin Thomas Medwin, who wanted £250 to suppress a biography.

What did Mary's physician suspect had killed her at 53 in February 1851?

She had suffered headaches and bouts of paralysis since 1839.

Where was Mary buried, her son having judged the St Pancras graveyard 'dreadful'?

Her parents' remains were later moved to join her there.

What did Mary's son and daughter-in-law find in her box-desk a year after her death?

The heart was wrapped in silk inside a copy of Percy's poem Adonaïs, along with some of his ashes.

Which critic first argued that Frankenstein is a 'birth myth' rooted in Shelley's loss of a baby?

Feminist critics of the 1970s largely rescued Shelley's reputation from neglect.

How did Godwin describe his 15-year-old daughter?

He added that her perseverance in everything she undertook was 'almost invincible'.

Which two novels of the 1830s were Mary Shelley's last?

Falkner is the only one of her novels in which the heroine's agenda triumphs.