Mary Shelley

After reading _Vindication_, the recent biography of Mary Wollstonecraft, the flow of the greater tale naturally leads to the lives of Godwin, his/her daughter and Shelley, and this account of the life of Wollstonecraft's daughter makes excellent continued reading, in the process giving a snapshot of the extraordinary dual careers of the Romantic poet and authoress of Frankenstein. Subjects now seen through the lenses of literary discourse also make a good study of the radical generation suffering the Restoration and its reactionary politics. Indeed the book is a study in class, and associated struggles, especially Shelley's voluntary abandonment of his aristocratic background. The end of Mary Shelley's life is one of the awful constrictions placed on her by Shelley's dreadful family after his death, and the seeming asphyxiation of her earlier radicalism. The magic moment of the birth of Frankenstein is that of the genre of prophecy rightly conceived, although we tend to project our later concerns (e.g. genetic enginering) on what was quite a different psychology and symbolism at work in the genesis of the extraordinary myth.

I disagree with my fellow Michigan man who trashes the subject and its author by mentioning "feminist" as if it is a four-letter word.Those who didn't find this book difficult to follow will discover a well-researched, well-written biography. Biographies of romantic-era writers can be very difficult, especially if the writer happens to be a woman. If Victorian-era leaders and historians didn't attempt to wipe out the writer's existence altogether, they at least attempted to wipe out parts of them that were not representative of Victorian, ie ultra-conservative, values.Little is known about the "mother" of science fiction beyond the most outrageous and scandalous aspects of her life, and even those facts were concealed by Mary Shelley's well-meaning family members for more than 100 years.For what she's been given, Seymour does an excellent job revealing the history and personality behind this writer and if that's considered feminist, I believe that's complimentary.

Really enjoyed the book. Agree entirely with Mr Sherwood smith. The research was impressive and one has a sense of the biography being a real labour of love. Miranda Seymour has unearthed a lot of new information and as a longtime fan of Mary Shelley, I was surprised to find out how little I actually knew about her life and motivations. I can't recommend it enough.

I hvae been reading this biography in fits and starts. It's slow going not because of the writing, which I find skillful and interesting, but because I keep wanting to check facts in Claire's and Mary's letters and journals, as well as in Byron's. My daughter has been reading it straight, and enjoys it on a different level; it seems amazing that these people, so creative, so interesting, were just her age. Seymour's sympathetic but careful view of Mary Shelley is a refreshing change after the hackjobs and hagiographies of the past century and decades. Claire's troublesome complexities, and Shelley's selfishness, come sharply into focus as they do when one reads the journals and letters. In short, kudos to Miranda Seymour for a job well done.