Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, an English Romantic novelist, was born on August 30, 1797, in London, England, and died on February 1, 1851, in London. She is most renowned for her work as the author of Frankenstein.
She, the sole progeny of William Godwin and Mary Wollstonecraft, encountered the youthful poet Percy Bysshe Shelley in 1812 and clandestinely absconded with him to France in July 1814. The couple entered into matrimony in 1816, subsequent to the tragic demise of Shelley’s former spouse by use of suicide. Following the death of her husband in 1822, she went back to England and dedicated herself to promoting Shelley’s literary works and raising their sole surviving child, Percy Florence Shelley. She released her deceased spouse’s Posthumous Poems (1824); she also curated his Poetical writings (1839), accompanied by extensive and significant annotations, as well as his prose writings. The Journal she wrote is a valuable resource for Shelley’s life, and her letters are an essential addition.