Shelley, Mary Wollstonecraft ___ 1797-1851 ___ British ___ writer

BIOGRAPHICAL SUMMARY
Shelley was born in London, into a highly cultured family - her father was a liberal philosopher, and her mother, who died while giving birth, was a celebrated writer. She was educated privately, but, soon after meeting the young poet Percy Shelley in 1814, eloped to France with him, if only for a few weeks. Back in London, the two lived together, and then, in 1816 after the death of Shelley's first wife, they married. Two years later, Mary's novel 'Frankenstein' was published. It was an immediate success. The same year, the Shelleys moved to Italy, where they lived in various locations. They had three children, two of whom did not survive infancy. Percy Shelley died in a boating accident in 1822, and Mary returned to England with her only surviving son. She did not remarry, but carried on with her writing, promoting Shelley's works, and looking after her father and son. Although she wrote four other novels, and tried her hand at other types of writing, 200 years later Frankenstein remains her one significant work. Her diary is considered an important source for information on Percy Shelley's life, as well as on her own.
A biography link
Wikipedia bio
The Diary Review - Write. Read Homer

DIARY DATES, CONTENT DESCRIPTORS
1814-1844 ___ domestic literary family people love/sex Italy

WEB TEXT LINKS
etext
one page
about and one quote

ORIGINAL MANUSCRIPT LINKS
Oxford University: Bodleian Library - possibly

SOME PUBLISHED TITLES
Life and Letters of Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley
The Journals of Mary Shelley 1814-1844
 

May 2005, August 2008, April 2013
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IMPORTANT NOTES AND CAUTIONS: 1) The first line of basic information may be incomplete in several ways: some historical figures have different names (titles, pen-names); their birth and death dates may be unknown or uncertain (g - guess, c - circa); similarly, their occupations may be unknown, or they may have had other jobs; and, for early diarists, I've used 'British' a bit too freely. 2) The biographical summary may not be accurate. It was compiled quickly from various sources, mostly on the internet, and the facts were not checked anywhere near as rigorously as they would have been if they'd been intended for publication in a printed form. 3) The journal dates and descriptors (which are in no particular order) must be treated with caution: since I have not examined the diaries myself, the descriptors are only guesses based on bibliographies, anthologies and internet biographies. 4) For the biography and etext links, I have ignored any sites with charges, and I have avoided, wherever possible, those with pop-ups or too much advertising. I have limited myself to providing three etext links where there is some variety between them. 5) For the original manuscript links, I have limited myself to providing a maximum of two (although, for a few diarists, their original diaries are held in more than two places). 6) I have provided the titles - chosen randomly - for up to three printed editions of the diaries.