© 2002
BY
Z ORBA P RESS
F RANKENSTEIN
BY
M ARY S HELLEY
10
Mary Shelley: A Chronology of Her Life and Works 1797 August 30. Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin is born in London, the daughter of the wellknown authors Mary Wollstonecraft and William Godwin. September 10. Ten days after giving birth to Mary, Mary’s mother dies at age 38, of puerperal fever (also called “childbed fever”). 1814 July 28. Deeply in love, Mary and Percy Bysshe Shelley leave England to live together in France. By August they are out of money and forced to return to England. September. During the next 6 months, due to poverty and debt — Shelley had been forced to borrow money at outrageously high interest rates — Mary and Percy will changes residences many times. To avoid creditors, Percy will often avoid going home to Mary. The anger of Mary’s father (William Godwin) at the Mary-Percy relationship is increased when false rumors circulate that Godwin sold Mary and Claire Clairmont to Shelley for 2,200 pounds. 1815 January 22. Mary’s first child, a daughter, is born prematurely and dies 6 weeks later. 1816 January 24. Son named William born to Mary and Percy Shelley. June 16. In a “waking dream” Mary envisions the kernel of her novel, Frankenstein. October 9. Fanny Inlay, the half sister of Mary Shelley, commits suicide by ingesting the poison laudanum (a tincture of opium). December 10. Suicide by drowning of the 21-year-old Harriet Westbrook, the first wife of Percy Bysshe Shelley.
© 2002
BY
Z ORBA P RESS
F RANKENSTEIN
BY
M ARY S HELLEY
11
December 30. Marriage of Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin to Percy Bysshe Shelley. 1817 May 14. Mary finishes writing the book Frankenstein. June. Mary writes a travel book, coauthored with Percy Shelley: Journal of a Six Weeks’ Tour. September 2. Daughter Clara born. 1818 March 11. The novel Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus is published in three volumes, 21 months after its original conception. No author is named on the book’s pages, but the name “Shelley” appears on the spine of each book, and thus readers assumed that the book’s author was Percy Bysshe Shelley. March 12. Mary, Percy, Claire Clairmont and three children (one Claire’s) leave for Italy to avoid debtors, and to recover Percy’s health. September. Death of daughter, Clara. 1819 June 7. Death of Mary’s son, William. November. Mary Finishes the novella Mathilda. Too advanced for its time — since the theme is a father’s incestuous love for his daughter — the book remains unpublished in Mary’s lifetime. It is published 140 years later, in 1959. November 12. Birth of son Percy Florence, Mary’s only child who survives infancy. 1820 Mary writes the dramas Proserpine, and Midas. 1821 February 21. Poet John Keats dies in Rome, at age 25, of tuberculosis. News of the death reaches the Shelleys in April.
© 2002
BY
Z ORBA P RESS
F RANKENSTEIN
BY
M ARY S HELLEY
12
Percy Bysshe Shelley completes his greatest work, the poem Adonais. December 1. Mary finishes her book, Valperga. 1822 June 16. Mary almost dies from hemorrhaging from a miscarriage. Husband Percy saves her life ingeniously, when he makes her sit in a bucket of ice. July 8. Death of Percy Bysshe Shelley (and his friend Edward Williams) by drowning; Shelley dies one month shy of his thirtieth birthday. When his friends burn the corpse on a fiery pyre, they are astonished to discover that the writer’s heart will not burn. July 19. After wondering and worrying about the whereabouts of their husbands for the past 11 days, Mary and friend Jane Williams receive news from family friend Trelawney that the lifeless bodies have washed ashore. A book of Keats’s poems is found in the one of Shelley’s pockets. Mary, widowed at age 25 with a two-and-one-half year-old son, decides that she will earn a living by publishing her own writings, and the writings of her husband Percy. 1823 August. The second edition of Frankenstein is published, this time the author is identified, as Mary W. Shelley. 1824 Spring. Mary’s wealthy father-in-law threatens to withdraw child support for Mary’s son if anything by or about Percy Bysshe Shelley is published. Mary has recently edited and published Percy’s works, and 309 copies have been sold, when publication is stopped abruptly due to the father-in-law’s demand. May 15. At age 36, Lord Byron, close friend of the Shelleys, dies of a fever at Missolonghi, a year after joining the Greeks in their fight for freedom. Soon after, Mary begins writing her futuristic novel, The Last Man. 1826 Mary’s novel is published, The Last Man, which begins in the year 2073. Modern critics believe that this excellent work is second in quality only to her Frankenstein.
© 2002
BY
Z ORBA P RESS
F RANKENSTEIN
BY
M ARY S HELLEY
13
1831 Mary publishes a revised version of Frankenstein, with an additional introduction explaining how she conceived and wrote the work. 1835 Mary publishes Lodore, an autobiographical novel. 1836 April. Death of Mary’s father, William Godwin. 1839 Publication of The Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley, edited and annotated by Mary. 1844 Mary writes Rambles in Germany and Italy. 1845 September. Fernando Gateschi and “G. Byron” try to blackmail Mary. The case involves letters, perhaps love letters, that Mary had written to a married man. 1846 A possible blackmail attempt against Mary is made by Thomas Medwin. 1848 April 10. Mary’s health plummets after she is emotionally upset by the failure of the Chartist Demonstration in London. Chartism was the movement by the working class to gain representation in Parliament; Chartists demanded universal suffrage for all adult males, and that the property qualifications for membership in the House of Commons should be abolished.
© 2002
BY
Z ORBA P RESS
F RANKENSTEIN
BY
M ARY S HELLEY
14
June 22. Mary’s son Percy marries Jane St. John, who devotes herself to the care of Mary. 1853 February 1. Mary Shelley dies, in London, at the age of 53.
