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Biography of Mary Shelley, continued | ||
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Mary sank deeper and deeper into depression as her children by Percy died, one by one, leaving her after five births in seven years with only one living son, Percy Florence. She felt Shelley turn away from her dark moods; his frequent involvements with other women, whether emotional or physical, led to an increasing feeling of distance between them. And he, too, rejected by both the literary world and his family, was subject to his own depressions. In Italy, in 1822, Shelley went out boating, despite repeated storm warnings, with his friend, Edward Williams. He never returned; he drowned that day in the Gulf of Spezia. His body was found ten days later. His father, Lord Timothy Shelley, made immediate moves to get Mary to give up her sole remaining living child, and his possible future heir, Percy Florence, to his custody. Mary refused. He then offered her a modest living allowance if she would return to England and write nothing of her life with his son (This including her projected edition of his poems with her biographical notes.) So back to London she went, a widow at 23. She never married again, never feeling she met any man who was Shelley's equal.
Mary did, however, keep writing, and, a true child of her era, often wrote in a fantastic vein. Her novel, The Last Man, is considered by many to be the first work of science fiction. Her articles, reviews, and short stories appeared often with the caption "by the author of Frankenstein." As time passed, the youthful rebel found a place in English society. She was a loving and devoted mother, and through her whole life had a warm and close relationship with her son, and eventually, with his wife, Jane. Lord Timothy Shelley, though never pleasant, relented in small ways. He raised her allowance in 1824, and again in subsequent years. He allowed her to publish her edition of Shelley's poems with biographical notes in 1839. On his death in 1844, Percy Florence inherited the title and estate, and Mary spent the last seven years of her life in comparative luxury. She was, all her life, a writer who supported herself with her pen, like her mother before her. But the early years with Shelley burned brightly in her memory, and caught the imagination of generations of writers and readers afterwards. And most of all do we remember that celebrated summer when an 18-year-old girl dreamt of a monster at her bedside and woke to create one of the great modern myths: Frankenstein's monster. --- Deborah Atherton |
