Mary wrote in 1827: “The memory of my mother has always been the pride and delight of my life.” 2. (William Godwin, Mary’s father, was a respected political thinker as well.) Wollstonecraft died from infection days after giving birth to Mary on August 30, 1797, but her influence on her daughter was profound. Her mother was Mary Wollstonecraft, the pioneering writer, thinker, and activist who published The Vindication of the Rights of Woman in 1792. Mary Shelley wasn’t the first ambitious woman in her family.

Mary Shelley’s mother was a feminist writer. Here are more facts you should know about the mother of science fiction. Beyond her novels, she displayed an interest in the darker side of life, having romantic trysts at her mother’s gravesite in her youth and carrying around an organ of her dead lover later in life. The author was influenced by great artists and thinkers throughout her life, from her philosopher parents to her poet husband Percy Shelley. To those who know Mary Shelley best, the flavor and quality of her writing comes as no surprise. The novel describes a young scientist who harnesses the power to create life by reanimating a corpse stitched together from scavenged body parts-and more than two centuries after its debut, some people still have trouble believing the story came from the mind of a teenage girl. Some readers were scandalized when Frankenstein, or The Modern Prometheus was first published in 1818.

William godwin mary shelley