Hideous Love: The Story of the Girl Who Wrote Frankenstein (24 page)

PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY (SHELLEY) eventually becomes Mary’s husband. He comes from an aristocratic background, but shuns his heritage. Shelley is renowned as one of the great Romantic poets of the early nineteenth century, though his name was made primarily after his death and largely thanks to the efforts of Mary. He is considered to this day to be one of the best lyric poets in the English language.

HARRIET WESTBROOK SHELLEY is Shelley’s first wife and the mother of his two children Ianthe and Charles. Shelley leaves Harriet for Mary, although the marriage is in disrepair even before Shelley meets Mary.

LORD BYRON (GEORGE GORDON BYRON), the first international celebrity, was well known in his day for his poetry, beauty, and rakishness. Byron is still regarded as one of the most influential poets of the Romantic period and one of the greatest British writers.

THOMAS LOVE PEACOCK is a close friend of Percy Shelley’s and a writer of poems and satirical novels. Thomas knows Shelley before he begins his relationship with Mary. Peacock becomes Shelley’s agent and business advisor.

ELIZABETH AND HELEN SHELLEY are two of Percy’s sisters whom he wishes to liberate from boarding school. Beginning with his sisters, Shelley always surrounded himself with a commune of women.

THOMAS JEFFERSON HOGG, a lifelong friend of Shelley’s since they met at Oxford, trains to become a barrister. He re-enters Shelley’s life in the autumn of 1814 to join Mary, Shelley, and Claire in forming an association of philosophical people. Thomas develops feelings for Mary that she does not return in measure. Hogg writes a biography of Shelley after his death.

SIR TIMOTHY SHELLEY is Percy Bysshe Shelley’s father. He lives the life of a country squire and serves in Parliament. He and his son are somewhat estranged. He does not approve of his son’s literary aspirations or his lifestyle.

WILLIAM SHELLEY, born January 24, 1816, is Mary and Shelley’s first son. His nickname is Willmouse.

JOHN POLIDORI is Lord Byron’s traveling doctor on his trip to Geneva, as well as his biographer. Polidori takes a liking to Mary and participates in the ghost-story-writing contest that spawns
Frankenstein
. John eventually writes a story about a vampire that establishes the modern conception of what constitutes a vampire. He commits suicide at age twenty-five.

AUGUSTA BYRON is Lord Byron’s half-sister, with whom he is rumored to be in love. This relationship destroys his first marriage. The affair causes such scandal that Byron leaves England.

LEIGH HUNT is an English critic, essayist, poet and writer. He edits
The Examiner
,
a periodical whose politics landed him and his brother John in prison for libel against the reigning prince regent. He gathers a circle of literary, philosophical, musical, and political people around him, including Shelley, Mary, and Lord Byron.

ELIZA WESTBROOK is the sister of Shelley’s first wife, Harriet. She fights for custody of Shelley’s first two children but is denied custody as is Shelley.

IANTHE AND CHARLES SHELLEY are the two children that Harriet and Shelley have together. When Shelley loses custody of Ianthe and Charles, he never again visits them.

CLARE ALLEGRA BYRON (ALLEGRA) is the offspring of Lord Byron and Claire. Allegra is Claire’s only child.

MARIANNE HUNT is Leigh Hunt’s wife. She bears him six children.

JOHN HUNT is Leigh Hunt’s brother and the second editor of
The Examiner
.

POLLY ROSE is a Marlow village girl whom Shelley tutors when he lives at Albion House. She is a prime example of Shelley’s practice of philanthropy throughout his life.

CLARA EVERINA SHELLEY is Mary and Shelley’s third child and their first girl to live long enough to be given a name.

ELISE DUVILLARD FOGGI is the devoted nursemaid of the Shelleys’. They send her to Byron’s to help care for Allegra. She later marries the Shelleys’ manservant Paolo Foggi.

MARIA GISBORNE cares for Mary and Fanny when they are young children after the death of their mother. When Mary meets Maria again, she is living in the Italian town of Livorno, where Mary and Shelley take up residence for a period.

HENRY REVELEY is the grown-up son of Maria Gisborne who grows attached to Claire and proposes to her.

RICHARD HOPPNER is the Venetian British consul who along with his wife takes care of Allegra for a time.

PAOLO FOGGI is Shelley’s manservant and a beloved employee of the family until he later impregnates Elise Duvillard and is forced to leave their employment. He later blackmails Shelley over the baby of Naples.

ELENA ADELAIDE Shelley is “the baby of Naples.” Her parentage remains a mystery to this day, although it is certain that Mary, although registered as such, is not her mother.

AMELIA CURRAN is an artist who paints a portrait of William Shelley and who lives in Rome at the same time as Mary and Shelley. She also paints the only surviving portrait of Claire, which Claire is said to have detested.

TERESA GUICCIOLI is Lord Byron’s mistress. He lives with her family as her acknowledged escort even though she is still married to her husband.

THOMAS MEDWIN is Shelley’s cousin who introduces Shelley and Mary to the Williamses. Thomas writes an account of the time he spends with Byron when the great Lord Byron lives in Pisa.

EDWARD WILLIAMS is an Englishman who, along with his wife, Jane, becomes a part of the Shelleys’ Pisan circle. He and Shelley build the ship the
Ariel
together.

JANE WILLIAMS is Edward Williams’s unofficial wife. They have two children together. She also catches the eye of Shelley.

EDWARD TRELAWNY joins the Pisan circle of expatriates. He is a storyteller and proclaims to know everything about boats. He finds the man who builds Shelley and Edward Williams their ship, the
Ariel
. Trelawny later writes a controversial memoir of his time with Shelley.

UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE

HarperCollins Publishers

.....................................................................

A TIME LINE OF BOOKS
BY MARY SHELLEY

•   
Mounseer Nongtongpaw or The Discoveries of John Bull in a Trip to Paris.
London: Printed for the Proprietors of the Juvenile Library, 1808.

In 1808 a thirty-nine-quatrain reworking of Charles Dibdin’s five-stanza song
Mounseer Nongtongpaw
was published by the Godwin Juvenile Library. This version became so popular that it was republished in 1830 in an edition illustrated by Robert Cruikshank. There remains some debate over whether or not Mary is the actual author of this work or whether a prose rendering of hers influenced a man by the name of John Taylor to compose the poem.

•   
History of a Six Weeks’ Tour through a part of France, Switzerland, Germany, and Holland, with Letters descriptive of a Sail round the Lake of Geneva, and of the Glaciers of Chamouni
. London: Published by T. Hookham, jun., and C. & J. Ollier, 1817.

Mary based this book (1817), which directly preceded
Frankenstein
, on journal entries and long letters home to Fanny. She used her mother’s
Letters Written during a Short Residence in Sweden, Norway, and Denmark
(1796) as a literary model. Mary wrote from an outsider’s perspective, though it is a lovely travelogue. She included Shelley’s poem “Mont Blanc” in this book.

•   
Frankenstein, or The Modern Prometheus
, 3 volumes. London: Lackington, Hughes, Harding, Mavor & Jones, 1818; revised edition, 1 volume, London: Henry Colburn & Richard Bentley, 1831; 2 volumes, Philadelphia: Carey, Lea & Blanchard, 1833.

Nearly two hundred years after it was first published,
Frankenstein
continues to be read as one of the classic novels in the English language and stands as one of the earliest examples of science fiction. Mary began the book in June of 1816 at the age of eighteen and finished the main writing of it by May of 1817. There are numerous interpretations of
Frankenstein
, as is true of all of Mary’s writing. One reading of the text supposes the theory that it is a book about the divided self. The idea is that within the civilized man or woman exists a monstrous, destructive force. The creature that emerges from Frankenstein’s experiment reflects the loneliness of both the scientist, Victor Frankenstein, and the narrator, Robert Walton. All three characters long for a friend or companion. Frankenstein and his monster alternately pursue and flee from each other. Like fragments of a mind in conflict with itself, they represent polar opposites that are not reconciled and that destroy each other at the end.
Frankenstein
endures because of its abundant philosophical inquiries.

•   
Mathilda
, edited by Elizabeth Nitchie. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1959.

After
Frankenstein
, Mary Shelley wrote the novella
Mathilda
, which was never published in her lifetime, partially because her father found it detestable. A rough draft was originally titled
The Fields of Fancy
(after her mother’s unfinished tale
Cave of Fancy
, written in 1787). Although not completely autobiographical, the book contains many elements that are self-reflective. For example, the three characters—Mathilda; her father; and Woodville, the poet—represent Mary Shelley, Godwin (Mary’s father), and Percy Shelley. The novella is in the form of memoirs addressed to Woodville, composed by a woman who expects to die at twenty-two. Written during the late summer and autumn of 1819, when Mary struggled with depression over the deaths of two children in nine months,
Mathilda
is both furious and elegiac, full of accountability and rife with self-pity.
Mathilda
may be Mary’s most famous work next to
Frankenstein
.

•   
Valperga or The Life and Adventures of Castruccio, Prince of Lucca
, 3 volumes. London: G. & W. B. Whittaker, 1823.

Mary Shelley began writing her novel
Valperga
in April 1820 in Florence and was still working on it in Pisa that fall. Difficult years elapsed in Mary Shelley’s life between the novel’s first inception and its completion in the autumn of 1821, which is somewhat indicated by the title change from
Castruccio, Prince of Lucca
to
Valperga
. The focus of the novel, published in 1823, changes from Castruccio’s tale to the story of the heroine, Euthanasia. Mary’s father helped her edit this book.
Valperga
shares with
Frankenstein
and
Mathilda
the theme of the fall from the innocent, happy illusions of childhood into the reality of adulthood with its knowledge of suffering.
Valperga
was the last book Mary wrote while Shelley was still living.

•   
The Last Man
, 3 volumes. London: Henry Colburn, 1826; 2 volumes, Philadelphia: Carey, Lea & Blanchard, 1833.

In February 1824, about a year and a half after Percy’s drowning, Mary began to write her bleakest novel,
The Last Man
.
The Last Man
is combination of forms—a work of science fiction, an apocalyptic prophecy, a dystopia, a gothic horror, and a domestic romance. Envisioning a horrifying and disastrous future world, it chronicles the disappearance of the inhabitants of Earth as people are killed by war, emotional conflict, or a mysterious plague. It was Mary’s darkest and worst reviewed book during her lifetime.

•   
The Fortunes of Perkin Warbeck
, 3 volumes. London: Henry Colburn & Richard Bentley, 1830; 2 volumes, Philadelphia: Carey, Lea & Blanchard, 1834.

The Fortunes of Perkin Warbeck
was perhaps Mary Shelley’s least successful novel. Impressed by the popularity of Sir Walter Scott’s historical romances, Mary attempted one based on the historical figure Perkin Warbeck, who claimed to be the younger son of King Edward IV. She was under some constraints in the composition of the novel. Mary created Perkin Warbeck as a stereotypically perfect character and then had to manipulate that character to adhere to historical truths.

•   
Lodore
, 3 volumes. London: Richard Bentley, 1835; 1 volume, New York: Wallis & Newell, 1835.

Mary Shelley’s novel
Lodore
is semi-autobiographical and repeats the triangle of characters found in
Mathilda
: father-daughter-lover. The most popular and successful of her novels since
Frankenstein
,
Lodore
was the first of Mary’s novels to have a sentimental, happy ending.

•   
Lives of the Most Eminent Literary and Scientific Men of Italy, Spain, and Portugal
, volumes 86-88 of
The Cabinet of Biography
, in
Lardner’s Cabinet Cyclopedia
, conducted by Reverend Dionysius Lardner. London: Printed for Longman, Orme, Brown, Green & Longman and John Taylor, 1835-1837; republished in part as
Lives of the Most Eminent Literary and Scientific Men of Italy
, 2 volumes. Philadelphia: Lea & Blanchard, 1841.

Mary Shelley became increasingly interested in nonfiction as she aged and wrote three volumes in the Reverend Dionysius Lardner’s popular
Cabinet Cyclopedia
. He had probably read her essays on Italian literature in the
Westminster Review
and commissioned similar work for his series.

•   
Falkner
, 3 volumes. London: Saunders & Otley, 1837; 1 volume, New York: Harper & Brothers, 1837.

In her last novel,
Falkner
, Mary Shelley explored another father-daughter relationship. In this book it is between an orphaned girl and her dastardly Byronic guardian, Falkner.
Falkner
is a perfect finale to Mary’s fictional writing as it encapsulates many of her concerns and uses her greatest novelistic strengths, a hero in conflict with himself, an absent mother, love and domestic responsibility, destiny and victimization—elements she had combined in the writing of
Frankenstein
nineteen years earlier.