Mary Shelley: A Very Short Introduction

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In 1816, when eighteen-year old Mary Godwin began writing Frankenstein, the idea that a woman could dream up such a tale was as far-fetched as raising a being from the dead. But Mary wasn't just any woman. The daughter of two notorious radicals, Mary had become an outcast from English society when she was only sixteen. A lifelong advocate for the rights of women, she refused to be governed by social conventions, running away with a married man, having children out of wedlock, and authoring books, stories, and essays that broke literary conventions.

This Very Short Introduction explores the context, background, and important themes contained in Shelley's most famous novel, Frankenstein, as well as demonstrating the importance of her work after Frankenstein. Over the course of her long career, Shelley developed a distinctive voice, and a political and philosophical stance. Exploring key themes throughout Shelley's work, Charlotte Gordon shows how she devoted herself to the propositions her mother, Mary Wollstonecraft, outlined in A Vindication of the Rights of Woman: that women are equal to men; that all people deserve the same rights; that human reason and the capacity for love can reform the world; and that every person is entitled to justice and freedom.

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Charlotte Gordon, Distinguished professor of English at Endicott College

Charlotte Gordon is the Distinguished Professor of English at Endicott College. An award-winning author, her work has appeared in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and the Washington Post, among other publications. Her latest book, Romantic Outlaws: The Extraordinary Lives of Mary Wollstonecraft and Mary Shelley (2015) won the National Book Critics Circle award. She is also the author of Mistress Bradstreet: The Untold Story of America's First Poet (2005), and The Woman Who Named God: Abraham's Dilemma and the Birth of Three Faiths (2009). Most recently, she has written the Introduction to Penguin's re-issue of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein.

1. Legacies
2. Gothic rebellion
3. Frankenstein
4. Early female narrators in A History of a Six Weeks Tour Through a Part of France, Switzerland, and Holland and Mathilda (1817-1821)
5. Valperga, The Last Man, and Perkin Warbeck
6. The final work, 1835-1844
Further Reading
Index