  Mary Shelley was born the 30 th of August, 1797. As a child, she spend most of her free time buiding an imaginary world for herself and writting little stories.She was sent at 15 in Scotland to cure some illness. There, she wrote more and more and developped a love for Nature. |
Aged of 17, Mary came back in her family and met the english poet Percy Shelley during a writer's meeting organised by her father. Percy, aged at that moment of 22 in 1815 and married by convenience, fall in love with Mary and decided to take her with him in Europe during one of his travel .
3 months later, they came back in England and Mary was pregnant. She gave birth prematurely to a girl who lived only a few days. A second child was born in 1816, called William. The couple is settled at that moment at Windsor, in the Bishopsgate area. Below, you can see the Shelley's house at the time of Mary Shelley, and next, nowadays.
They decide to come back in Europe and move into the Chapuis house in the town of Cologny near Geneva, aside to the Diodati villa ( see picture below ), where are living Lord Byron ( picture N°2 ), and his secretary and doctor John Polidori ( Picture N°3 ).
Percy is very happy with that because he adores Byron's poems. Each evening they have a walk all together around the lake. But the weather is becoming cold and they go on meeting in the Diodati villa to comment their latest readings.
Below, a view of Cologny from the Byron field, on the opposite side of the lake :
Following the reading of a german compilation of horror short stories, Byron challenge his friends to write a story about ghosts... Byron starts one about vampires, Polidori a story with a skull-headed woman, but none of the 2 achieve his story. ( Byron's story will taken later by Polidori which turned it into a story called "The vampyre" in 1819 ).
Mary take inspiration in a nightmare she made, starring ascientist which give life to a dead creature thanks to electricity. The "Frankenstein" concept was born.
Mary and Percy come back in England, and Mary carried on working on the "Frankenstein" story. At that period, Theofficial spouse of Percy killed herself, and Percy spoused Mary, who became his official wife.
Mary finishes to write her story in april, 1817. Percy adds an intro and they go to London to find an editor. After two refusals, the manuscript is accepted by Lackington. The book was published in march 1818 in 3 volumes, reedited in 1823, then reworked and reedited in 1831 ( the version diffused nowadays ).
In 1818, Mary, encouraged by her husband, wrote too 2 plays and 2novels.
In 1827, Percey goes to Livourne by ship and is wrecked. Mary come back in London and put all her energy to publish the whole writings of her deceased husband.
To assure the future of her children, Mary strarts a professionnal writer's office and write numerous poems, short stories, reviews, and a second anticipation story, "The last man", but she never achieved it.
She proposes too to her editor some projects linked to history, one of her passion : The story of Mexico, a biography of Mahommet,...
Mary died in february 1851, aged of 54. She will stay in memories for "Frankenstein", worldwide famous, but the main part of her writings will stay nearly unknown...
To know more about Mary Shelley : http://home-1.worldonline.nl/~hamberg/
To know more about the places visited by the Shelley's : http://srv2.lycoming.edu/~lewes/shelleysites/englandframe.htm
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