The companions of our childhood always possess a certain power over our minds which hardly any later friend can obtain.
Per què està proposada per al M.I.D.I. ?
Va ser una de les primeres escritores d’èxit en anglès. Son pare, William Godwin, que era filòsof, la va criar i li va traspassar les seues idees de llibertat i anarquia. És una dona que s’ha redescobert en els últims anys, se li reconeix el mèrit com a escriptora, estudiosa i introductora de idees radicals en els seus llibres.
Resum biogràfic
MARY WOLLSTONECRAFT SHELLEY (1797-1851) is best known for her Gothic horror story Frankestein.
Born in London in August 1797, Mary Shelley was the only daughter of the philosopher William Godwin and his wife Mary Wollstonecraft, the radical feminist writer. Tragically her mother died almost immediately and Mary was brought up by her father and his second wife. Finding herself bereft of emotional attention, Mary spent much of her childhood reading, scribbling stories and day-dreaming. She later claimed that her favourite pastime was “the formation of castles in the air” and it was one such waking dream that led to her most famous creation.
In 1814 Mary first met, and fell in love with, the young Percy Bysshe Shelley, who having great admiration for William Godwin beliefs was often to be found at her father’s house. Running from her father’s scorn at her entanglement with a married man, Mary eloped with Shelley in July 1914, accompanied by her step sister Jane Clairmont. They travelled the continent for several weeks until lack of money forced them to return to England. It was only in 1816, on the death of Shelley’s wife Harriet, that they were able to marry. Most of their short married life was spent in Italy. Mary Shelley’s life was dogged by tragedy and of the four children she bore only their son, Percy Florence, survived. In 1822 Shelley was drowned when his boat, Ariel, capsized in a summer storm. Mary returned to England in 1823, where she continued to live as a professional writer until her death in 1851.
Remembered foremost for Frankestein, Mary Shelley is also the author of a number of other novels including Lodore, Falkner, Pekin Warbeck and The Last Man, a futuristic novel examining the gradual destruction of mankind. Although forbidden by Percy Shelley’s father to write an autobiography of her husband, Mary did prepare and publish a collected edition of his poems in 1839.
The idea of Frankestein came to Mary Shelley in a half-waking nightmare in the summer of 1816. She had been staying with her husband and Lord Byron on the shore of Lake Geneva when at Byron’s suggestion they were all challenged to make up a ghost story. Her husband encouraged Mary to expand upon her story, and Frankestein was first published in early 1818.
bereft of = without
scribble = write quickly and roughly
scorn = contempt, disrespect
entanglement = complicated or adulterous sexual relationship
elope = go away secretly to get married
dog = be with somebody all the time
drown = die because you have gone or been pushed underwater and you cannot breath.
Capsize = turn upside down
Obres
- Frankestein (1918),
- Valperga (1823),
- Perkin Warbeck (1830),
- The Last Man (1826),
- Lodore (1835),
- Falkner (1837).