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Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley (UK: , US: ; née Godwin; 30 August 1797 – 1 February 1851) was an English novelist who wrote the Gothic novel Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus (1818). She also edited and promoted the works of her husband, the Romantic poet and philosopher Percy Bysshe Shelley. Her father was the political philosopher William Godwin and her mother was the philosopher and feminist Mary Wollstonecraft.

Shelly's mother died less than a month after giving birth to her. She was raised by her father who was able to provide her with a rich if informal education, encouraging her to adhere to his own anarchist political theories. When she was four, her father married a neighbour with whom Shelley came to have a troubled relationship.

In 1814, Shelley began a romance with one of her father's political followers, Percy Bysshe Shelley, who was already married. Together with her stepsister, Claire Clairmont, she and Percy left for France and travelled through Europe. Upon their return to England, Shelley was pregnant with Percy's child. Over the next two years, she and Percy faced ostracism, constant debt and the death of their prematurely born daughter. They married in late 1816, after the suicide of Percy Shelley's first wife, Harriet.

In 1816, the couple famously spent a summer with Lord Byron, John William Polidori and Claire Clairmont near Geneva, Switzerland, where Shelley conceived the idea for her novel Frankenstein. The Shelleys left Britain in 1818 for Italy, where their second and third children died before Shelley gave birth to her last and only surviving child, Percy Florence Shelley. In 1822, her husband drowned when his sailing boat sank during a storm near Viareggio. A year later, Shelley returned to England and from then on devoted herself to the upbringing of her son and a career as a professional author. The last decade of her life was dogged by illness, most likely caused by the brain tumour which killed her at age 53.

Until the 1970s, Shelley was known mainly for her efforts to publish her husband's works and for her novel Frankenstein, which remains widely read and has inspired many theatrical and film adaptations. Recent scholarship has yielded a more comprehensive view of Shelley's achievements. Scholars have shown increasing interest in her literary output, particularly in her novels, which include the historical novels Valperga (1823) and Perkin Warbeck (1830), the apocalyptic novel The Last Man (1826) and her final two novels, Lodore (1835) and Falkner (1837). Studies of her lesser-known works, such as the travel book Rambles in Germany and Italy (1844) and the biographical articles for Dionysius Lardner's Cabinet Cyclopaedia (1829–1846), support the growing view that Shelley remained a political radical throughout her life. Shelley's works often argue that cooperation and sympathy, particularly as practised by women in the family, were the ways to reform civil society. This view was a direct challenge to the individualistic Romantic ethos promoted by Percy Shelley and the Enlightenment political theories articulated by her father, William Godwin.

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Rambles in Germany and Italy

What wonderful places there are to see and experience in Italy and Germany. The architecture, the food and the people. How lovely to share all this with the person you love the most in the world!

The book is a beautifully written and picturesque travel memoir, and also Shelley’s last published work. Her narratives are reminiscent of the travels she took some twenty years ago with her now deceased husband, saturating her language with melancholia and sorrow.

Touching upon themes like depression, politics, revolutionary talk and religion, Shelley’s "Rambles" are both an affluent non-fiction piece and a memento on the author’s memory shelf. Mary Shelley was a renowned English novelist, essay and short story writer, biographer, and editor of prose and poetry alike. A voracious reader of all kind of literature, Shelley is one of the major Romantic figures, earning her place as a female writer among the male dominated literary status quo. Best known for her 1818 Gothic masterpiece 'Frankenstein', There have been so many adaptations of it that it is impossible to name them all. The Frankenstein movie from 1994 was very popular starring Robert de Niro, Kenneth Branagh and John Cleese. A 2015 version called Victor Frankenstein stars none other than Daniel Radcliffe, the very famous Harry Potter! Her works also include the apocalyptic novel 'The Last Man' and the historical narrative 'Valperga'. Despite her prolific career, she was mostly remembered as the wife of Percy Bysshe Shelley, one of the leading names in English Romanticism.
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Trykt sideantal290 Sider
Udgivelsesdato22 mar. 2022
Udgivet afSAGA Egmont
Sprogeng
ISBN epub9788726595895