by Abel G.M.
A Life Marked by Loss
Mary Godwin, who later took the name Mary Shelley, was marked by loss from birth. She was born on August 30, 1797, and never knew her mother, Mary Wollstonecraft, who died a few weeks after giving birth. When she was four, her father remarried Mary Jane Clairmont, a woman Mary detested and always blamed for separating her from her father.
William Godwin, Mary’s father, was a writer and philosopher with very liberal ideas for his time. He described marriage as a “repressive monopoly,” promoted the feminist ideals of his first wife, Mary Wollstonecraft, and easily accepted Fanny Imlay, his wife’s daughter from an extramarital affair, which was scandalous in the eyes of England’s wealthy society. Despite his reputation and debts, Godwin managed to provide his daughter with a good education, offering access to the rich library at home, as well as a tutor and governess.
A Scandalous Escape
Among the intellectuals in Godwin’s circle was Percy Bysshe Shelley, a young man who looked up to Godwin as an intellectual father and even helped him with his debts for a time. In 1814, Mary was sixteen—five years younger than Percy—who became her first great love. Their relationship was scandalous from the start: they met secretly in a cemetery, where Mary likely became pregnant. Shelley was in a difficult position, as he was married (his wife was also pregnant) and could no longer help Godwin financially.
Their solution was to run away, taking with them Mary’s teenage stepsister, Claire Clairmont. Despite their mutual dislike of their mother, Mary and Claire got along well, and it’s likely Shelley was interested in Claire as well. They fled to Lucerne, Switzerland, but their adventure was short-lived, as they had no money. After three months, they returned to England, where they were met with rejection, even from Godwin.
The three young people lived in a free-spirited relationship for more than a year, surviving on Shelley’s family income. During that time, Mary suffered a devastating blow, one that would repeat itself throughout her life: the death of her premature daughter, which plunged her into a deep depression. Death had accompanied Mary from birth, and during their escape to Switzerland, she witnessed it firsthand in a Europe ravaged by the Napoleonic Wars. The monsters she would soon bring to life in her writing began to form in her mind.
The Nightmare of a Summer Night
In May 1816, Percy Shelley decided to take Mary to the Swiss town of Cologny, on the shores of Lake Geneva, convinced that the sunny weather would lift her spirits. Her mood had already improved with the birth of their second child, William, in January of that year. They were invited to the elegant Villa Diodati by the poet Lord Byron, who had begun a relationship with Claire, Mary’s stepsister.
Contrary to expectations, the weather that year was dreadful, earning 1816 the name “the year without a summer.” Rain often kept them confined indoors for days at a time. What was supposed to be a fun vacation turned into a series of evenings spent by the fire, where the group entertained themselves by reading ghost stories. It was during one of these nights that the seed of the monster that would haunt Mary for the rest of her life was planted: Byron suggested that each person write a horror story. However, Mary struggled to come up with any ideas and began to suffer from increasing anxiety.
One night, the conversation shifted to the nature of life and the possibility of generating it artificially. When Mary went to sleep, she had a vision, which she described as “a grim terror”: “I saw the pale student of unhallowed arts kneeling beside the thing he had created. I saw the hideous phantom of a man stretched out, and then, by some powerful mechanism, it showed signs of life and moved with an uneasy, unnatural motion. Terrible as it was, for any human attempt to mock the stupendous mechanism of the world’s Creator would be utterly frightening.”
She immediately began working on what she initially thought would be just a hobby, but it would eventually become the work for which she would be forever remembered. Mary’s ghosts fueled the story; the feelings of loss from her mother’s and first daughter’s deaths and her estrangement from her father gave rise to a novel about life and death, about the responsibilities of parenthood, and about the consequences of defying the natural order. Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus is the story of a tormented man who challenges nature, creates a being that has no place in the world, rejects both the creature and the responsibility of creating it, and ultimately causes the death of his loved ones, condemning himself to solitude.
The novel was first published in 1818, and the fact that it was released anonymously highlights how scandalous it was, even for the author herself. Years later, Mary would reflect, “How could I, then a young girl, conceive and develop such a horrifying idea?” Despite her feelings of horror, the second edition already bore her name, and in subsequent editions, published from 1831 onward, Mary thoroughly revised her creation, removing some of the more disturbing passages.
Haunted by Tragedy
Despite their liberal views on marriage, Mary and Percy Shelley married upon returning from Switzerland to appease their families, marking the moment when Mary Godwin became Mary Shelley, the name by which she would be remembered. The marriage was bittersweet: on the one hand, it allowed her to reconcile with her father, but it was overshadowed by the suicide of Percy’s former wife. Death continued to plague Mary: in 1816, her half-sister Fanny Imlay, the daughter Mary Wollstonecraft had before marrying Godwin, also took her own life.
In 1818, while the Shelleys were traveling in Italy, their son William fell ill and died; in 1819, their third child, Clara, also passed away. In 1822, Mary suffered a miscarriage, nearly losing her life to hemorrhage. The final blow came later that year when Percy Shelley disappeared during a sailing trip. His body was found three days later, lifeless, on a beach in Tuscany.
This series of tragedies plunged Mary into a deep depression from which she would never fully recover. She left Italy, the country that had taken her husband and two of her children, and returned to England with her fourth child, Percy Florence Shelley, the only one who would live to old age. From that point on, she earned her living through writing, but her financial situation remained precarious, as she not only had to support herself and her son but also helped her father pay off his debts.
The death of William Godwin in 1844 eased Mary’s financial burden and provided her with a modest inheritance. However, for several years, she had been suffering increasingly frequent symptoms of what her doctor suspected was a brain tumor. When her son Percy Florence married, Mary moved in with him and his wife, where she lived until February 1, 1851, when the death that had always pursued her finally claimed her as well.
During her years in England, Mary Shelley wrote works across various genres: historical novels, travel diaries, biographies, short stories, and essays. She also dedicated herself to translating and editing the works of other authors—such as Lord Byron—and promoting her husband’s writings, achieving more success for them posthumously than Percy had in life, ironically diminishing her own legacy in the process. Although she was well-known during her lifetime, after her death, only one of her works would remain in the collective memory: Frankenstein, the story in which she had poured her own inner demons during that rainy summer of 1816.
Storica National Geographic, August 30, 2024
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Frankenstein, 1816: The Year a Monster Was Born
In a cold Swiss summer, Lord Byron proposed a literary contest to his friends, from which emerged one of the most unsettling novels in European literature: Frankenstein by Mary Shelley.
by María Pilar Queralt
The year 1816 went down in history as the “Year Without a Summer.” The eruption of Mount Tambora in Sumbawa (Indonesia) on April 11 of the previous year released tons of sulfuric dust that spread across the planet, causing a lasting cooling effect that disrupted agricultural cycles and led to famines. These effects were felt even in Switzerland, where a group of friends from England had gathered in the summer at an elegant mansion called Villa Diodati, near Lake Geneva in Cologny. The group included the poet Percy B. Shelley, his then-lover Mary Godwin, the renowned writer Lord Byron, his personal physician and secretary John Polidori, and Claire Clairmont, Mary’s stepsister.
As true Romantics, the residents of Villa Diodati loved nature, were fascinated by scientific advancements, and had a great passion for Gothic novels. Due to the poor weather, they were forced to spend much of their time indoors, often passing their evenings reading ghost stories. “The incessant rain confined us indoors. Some volumes of ghost stories fell into our hands […] They are as vivid in my mind as if I had read them yesterday,” Mary would later recall.
The group also discussed the scientific advancements of the time, which often bordered on the magical. They were particularly intrigued by experiments involving electricity, such as those conducted by Luigi Galvani, who demonstrated how a frog’s legs could be made to move with an electric shock, as well as the speculations of Erasmus Darwin on the possibility of reviving inanimate matter through electrical impulses.
In this environment, filled with ghost stories, experiments, and readings, their confinement bore creative fruit. One day, Lord Byron proposed that each member of the group write a horror story. The idea was well received, and it resulted in the creation of two masterpieces of fantastic literature: The Vampyre by John Polidori—a story about an aristocratic seducer who drains the blood of women who fall into his trap, a precursor to Bram Stoker’s more famous Dracula (1897)—and Frankenstein by Mary Shelley.
The Philosopher’s Daughter
At that time, Mary Shelley was still Mary Godwin. Born in London 19 years earlier, she had grown up attending the literary and philosophical circles organized by her father, the philosopher William Godwin, at their home. These gatherings were frequented by the most innovative writers and thinkers of the time. It was there, in 1814, that she met the poet Percy B. Shelley, who was then married with two children. The two fell in love (she was the first to declare her feelings), but from the outset, Godwin opposed their relationship. Determined not to give up on a life together, two months after their first meeting, the couple fled to France, accompanied by Claire, Mary’s stepsister. Shortly after, they traveled to Switzerland, where they strengthened their ties with Byron, with whom Claire began a romantic relationship.
When Byron launched his unusual challenge, Mary had yet to reveal her talents as a writer. One can imagine that facing the blank page was intimidating for her, given her highly sensitive nature and emotional instability, which often led her to depressive states and constant contemplation about the relationship between life and death. Perhaps for this reason, her subconscious—likely aided by laudanum, a popular opiate of the time that she used to combat insomnia—came to her rescue. As she recounted years later, one night she had a terrifying dream: she believed she saw “the pale student of unhallowed arts kneeling beside the result of his work. I saw the hideous phantom of a man stretched out, showing some signs of life, by means of a powerful engine: I saw it stir, still shapeless but already almost human.” Thus, the monster of Dr. Frankenstein was born.
Mary translated her nightmare into a short story about a scientist who creates a monstrous being. Upon returning to Britain, she expanded her story into a novel, which was published in 1818 under the title Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus, with the author remaining anonymous. She received help from Shelley, whom she had married after the suicide of his first wife. Mary later wrote, “My husband constantly urged me to claim my place in the book of fame and to establish a literary reputation.” In 1831, she completely rewrote the story, creating the definitive version that we know today.
The Doctor and His Creature
The novel tells the story of a Swiss scientist, Dr. Victor Frankenstein, who, after attending lectures at the University of Ingolstadt in Bavaria on the latest scientific advancements, decides that he will go even further. “I will explore unknown powers and tread new paths until I reach the deepest mysteries of creation.” Frankenstein fervently studies animal anatomy and the processes of generation and decay, until one day he has a revelation that leads him to discover “the cause of generation and life,” convincing him that he is “capable of bestowing life upon inanimate matter.”
For nearly two years, Frankenstein conducts mysterious experiments in an attic he uses as a laboratory. Using various body parts collected from dissection rooms and animal parts from slaughterhouses, he forms a large human body (2.40 meters tall). Likely using a battery similar to the one invented by Alessandro Volta around 1800, he applies electrical impulses to bring it to life. Finally, on a stormy November night, by the dim light of a candle, Frankenstein watches as his creature opens an eye and begins to breathe. Terrified, he flees, and when he returns, the Creature—this is the name he gives to his creation—has disappeared. From this moment, the novel’s plot unfolds, with the new being experiencing loneliness and human hostility, unintentionally killing a child, and eventually confronting his creator.
In all three versions of the story, there is a constant effort by the author to understand the close relationship between life and death. The deaths of two of her children, due to infections contracted during a long journey in Italy, and that of Percy B. Shelley in a shipwreck in 1822, only deepened her morbid obsession. At the same time, the novel reflects the scientific concerns of her era, such as the legitimacy of research that defied traditional morality and humanity’s power to both create and destroy life.
Dedicated to literature, the care of her only surviving son, Percy Florence, and preserving the memory of Shelley, Mary steadfastly refused to remarry, stating that after marrying a genius, she could only wed another. Upon returning to London after a trip to the continent, she began to experience the first symptoms of the illness, a brain tumor, that would lead to her death on February 1, 1851. After her passing, when her relatives went through her belongings, they found, wrapped in silk alongside Percy B. Shelley’s poem Adonais, the heart of the man who had been her husband and mentor. Perhaps she kept it in the hope that, one day, a real-life Victor Frankenstein might bring her beloved back to life.
Storica National Geographic, January 21, 2021
