Frankenstein Context Notes

FRANKENSTEIN

Shelley's History and Life

Her mother, Mary Wollstonecraft, was the author of A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, a feminist tract encouraging women to think and act for themselves.

Mary as a teenager met Percy Bysshe Shelley, a young poet. In 1814, they ran away together for a tour of France, Switzerland, and Germany—Mary escaping her family and Percy his wife. At first blissful, their affair soon came under strain. Percy’s relationship with Mary waxed and waned with the demands of his wife, Harriet; meanwhile, Mary busied herself with another man. Despite these distractions, the relationship endured and was eventually formalized under scandalous circumstances: Harriet, pregnant with Percy’s child, drowned herself in London in November of 1816; Mary and Percy were married weeks later. This led to rejection of their relationship by Mary's father.

From 1815 to 1819, three of her four children died in infancy; in 1822, Percy drowned off the shore of Tuscany, leaving Mary a widow and single mother. Shelley started writing the story when she was 18, and the first edition of the novel was published anonymously in London on 1 January 1818, when she was 20. Her name first appeared on the second edition, published in France in 1823.

Science

Shelley uses the Creature to warn the Government against mistreating the masses

The Creature…