Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley

Shelley, Mary Wollstonecraft 

Born Aug. 30, 1797, in London; died there Feb. 1, 1851. English writer. Daughter of W. Godwin; wife of P. B. Shelley.

The hero of Shelley’s novel Frankenstein, or The Modern Prometheus (1818; Russian translation, 1965) creates a monster that tries to do good, but, embittered by loneliness, kills its creator. A gloomy picture of the coming downfall of mankind through epidemics and starvation is at the center of her novel The Last Man (1826). Shelley also wrote the autobiographical novel Lodore (1835) and commentaries to a posthumous edition of works by P. B. Shelley (1839).

WORKS

The Letters of Mary Shelley, vols. 1–2. Norman, Okla., 1944–46.
Mary Shelley’s Journal. Norman, Okla., 1947.

REFERENCES

Bel’skii, A. A. Angliiskii roman 1800–1810-x gg. Perm’, 1968.
Spark, M. Child of Light. Hadleigh, Essex, 1951.
Small, C. Ariel Like a Harpy. London, 1972.