Mary Shelley

Mary Shelley was an English novelist, short story writer, and editor who created one of the most enduring and influential works of fiction in the English language — Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus. She was a literary pioneer who helped invent science fiction and whose creation has become one of the most recognised and reimagined stories in all of culture. Born Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin in London in 1797, she was the daughter of the feminist philosopher Mary Wollstonecraft and the political philosopher William Godwin — intellectual royalty of the age. Her mother died shortly after her birth. At sixteen, Mary eloped with the poet Percy Bysshe Shelley, and they married in 1816 after his first wife's suicide. Frankenstein was conceived during a famous gathering at Lake Geneva in the summer of 1816, where Mary, Percy Shelley, Lord Byron, and John Polidori challenged each other to write ghost stories. Mary's contribution — the story of Victor Frankenstein, a scientist who creates a living creature from dead matter and is destroyed by the consequences — was published in 1818, when she was just twenty years old. The novel explores creation, responsibility, isolation, and the consequences of unchecked ambition, and it has been read as a commentary on science, parenthood, social rejection, and the Romantic movement itself. Its influence on literature, film, theatre, and popular culture is incalculable. Shelley also wrote the novels Valperga, The Last Man, Lodore, and Falkner, and edited her husband's poetry after his death by drowning in 1822. She died in London in 1851. The audiobook editions of Frankenstein and Shelley's other works are powerful and thought-provoking. Her books and audiobooks are essential — the work of a young woman who imagined one of the most important stories ever told.