Mary Shelley (1797-1851)
England

Mary Shelley was born into a life of literature as the only child of William Godwin and Mary Wollstonecraft, prominent figures of the Enlightenment. Philosophers, artists, and writers, including Coleridge and Charles Lamb were frequent visitors of Mary's during her youth. Her father, William Godwin, taught her to read and write through tracing the inscription on her mother's tombstone. At 16, Mary ran off to the continent with Percy Shelley, whom she admired and loved. It was during her stay in Switzerland, during the summer of 1816 with Byron and Shelley that she was first inspired to write Frankenstein. She would later be attributed as the creator of the science fiction novel. After the deaths of Shelley's wife and Mary's half-sister, Fanny, the couple wedded and moved to Italy. There they experienced more hardship when Mary's first two children died. In 1822, Shelley drowned and left Mary a two-year-old son, and no financial means to raise him. Burdened by her husband's death and the poverty that came with it, she reluctantly moved back to England, where she supported her father and her son through her writing. She faced the struggle of attempting to accord her son with the Shelley family title. In addition, she had to withstand the criticism of society regarding her marriage to Shelley, which was deemed inappropriate. Ironically, she died in 1851, the year of the Great Exhibition, a demonstration of England's scientific and technological progress.

Works

Frankenstein (1818)
Valperga (1823)
The Last Man (1826)
Lodore (1835)
Falkner (1837)

Sources:
Woodbridge, Kim. A. Mary Shelley and Frankenstein. 26 June 2001 <http://www.kimwoodbridge.com/maryshel/maryshel.shtml>