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The Biographical Element in the Novels of Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 December 2020

Walter Edwin Peck
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Extract

Readers of Shelley's poetry must regret the lack of a biography of the poet by his gifted second wife, Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley. More keenly than any other of those among whom his life was lived, she apprehended the presence of the “divine fire” in his work. For it she endured public ignominy, poverty, exile, and more—the occasional wavering of his affections toward her—with unexampled patience. For it she set aside her own literary aspirations, themselves neither slight nor groundless, until that blow which stilled forever the voice of her beloved numbed also her genius and left her desolate. Afterwards, when that which the sea gave up had vanished in mist or been resolved to dust on the sands of Spezzia, and when that dust had been laid away near the pyramid of Caius Cestius at Rome, there remained the memory of him to be cherished, and his fame to be kept pure to succeeding ages.

Type
Research Article
Information
PMLA , Volume 38 , Issue 1: American Bibliography for 1922 , March 1923 , pp. 196 - 219
Copyright
Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 1923

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References

1 The cemetery is described. The Last Man. ii. 93-95.

2 Ibid., ii. 85-86.

3 Lije of Percy Bysshe Shelley (1886). i. 436-8.

4 W. M. Rossetti, art. on Mary Shelley in Encyclopaedia Brittanica; Richard Garnett, Introduction to Tales and Stories by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley (1891); H. Buxton Forman, Introduction to Shelley Society facsimile of Shelley's MS. of The Mask of Anarchy (1887) pg. 43.

5 Letter to Sir John Bowring, Feb. 25, 1826, published in Appendix to Shelley Society facsimile of Shelley's MS. of The Mask of Anarchy.

6 As Adrian, Earl of Windsor, in The Last Man; as Euthanasia in Valperga; as Richard, Duke of York, in The Fortunes of Perkin Warbeck; as Gerard Neville and John Falkner in Falkner.

7 As Lionel in The Last Man; as Monina (and occasionally also as Katherine) in the Fortunes of Perkin Warbeck; and as Mrs. Raby and Elizabeth Raby in Falkner.

8 As Perdita in The Last Man; in the early stages of Castruccio's infatuation, as Beatrice in Valperga; and as Miss Jervis in Falkner.

9 As Lord Raymond in The Last Man.

10 As Beatrice in Valperga (vols. ii and iii.).

11 As Evadne in The Last Man. i. 59-60, 73-80, 82, 84-5.

12 As the Countess of Windsor in The Last Man.

13 As the mariner Hernan de Faro in The Fortunes of Perkin Warbeck.

14 Her suicide is glanced at, The Last Man. i. 280-2.

15 As the second child of Lionel and Idris, The Last Man. ii. 134-135.

16 As the “dying brother” of Euthanasia, Valperga i. 205-6.

17 As Alfred in The Last Man. i. 135; perhaps also as Edward in The Fortunes of Perkin Warbeck. i. 78-80, 91-92; in the second chapter of vol. i. as Elizabeth Raby in Falkner.

18 Ingpen, Shelley in England (1917) pg. 583.

19 Letter of Mary Shelley to Leigh Hunt, August 22, 1824. Life and Letters of Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley (1889) ii. 121.

20 Ibid., ii. 150.

21 Falkner, i. 133. Shelley's eyes were not deep-set but inclined to be protuberant.

22 Ibid., i. 136-7, 145.

23 The Last Man. i. 41-43.

24 Letters of Harriet Shelley to Catherine Nugent (1889), pg. 58. In this letter she emphasizes the effect which Mary's weeping had upon Shelley.

25 Falkner. i. 6-7.

26 The Fortunes of Perkin Warbeck, i. 104.

27 Ibid. i. 106.

28 Introduction to Shelley Society facsimile of Shelley's MS. of The Mask of Anarchy (1887) p. 43.

29 The Last Man. i. 59-60.

30 The Last Man. i. 79-80.

31 This may be one of Mary's own views, arbitrarily attached to Harriet. It is known that both Godwin and Mary rejoiced that in The Cenci Shelley had produced a work less unearthly than most of his productions. Cf. Mary's note on The Witch of Atlas, in Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley, (1839) iv. 51-3, and Kegan Paul, William Godwin: His Friends and Contemporaries (1876) ii. 272.

32 The Last Man, i. 82.

33 Ibid. i. 84.

34 Ibid. i. 84-5. Cf. Peacock's description of Shelley in 1814. Works of Thomas Love Peacock (1875) iii. 417.

35 Kegan Paul, William Godwin, His Friends and Contemporaries (1876) ii. 215.

36 The Last Man, i. 168.

37 Ibid. i. 178 seq. and cf. Falkner, ii. 38-40 for a description fitting Mary's flight from the Godwin establishment on that momentous morning of 1814.

38 The Last Man, i. 184.

39 The Fortunes of Perkin Warbeck, ii. 160.

40 Dowden, Life of Percy Bysshe Shelley, i. 442. Cf. also Laon and Cythna, VI. xxiv. 1-3; and Falkner, i. 154.

41 The Fortunes of Perkin Warbeck, iii. 23.

42 Ibid., ii. 300, 302. But Mayence, which they saw on this trip, is mentioned in Falkner, i. 141.

43 Falkner, i. 234.

44 The Last Man, i. 74-6, 165-6, 188-9, 191-2; ii. 240-1; iii. 24-34.

45 Ibid. i. 189. Cf. Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley (1839) i. 376.

46 Falkner. ii. 175-6, 180-1.

47 The Last Man, ii. 203-5; Falkner, ii. 180, 223-4.

48 Introduction to Tales and Stories by Mary Wollslonecraft Shelley. p. xii.

49 The Romance of Mary W. Shelley, John Howard Payne and Washington Irving. 1907. pg. 91.

50 The Last Man, ii. 145. French towns along their itinerary are mentioned in chapter vii, and there are some very fine descriptions of the scenery of Switzerland in chapter viii which 1 dislike to omit but feel myself obliged to do so to avoid extending this paper to an unreasonable length.

51 Ibid. i. 83.

52 The Last Man. i. 196.

53 Ibid. ii. 191.

54 Ibid. ii. 182.

55 Ibid. in. 205; and cf. Ibid. i. 80.

56 Ibid. i. 53.

57 Ibid. i. 53.

58 Ibid ii. 191.

59 Ibid. i. 173.

60 Ibid. ii. 180.

61 The Last Man, i. 196.

62 Ibid. i. 81; and cf. Ibid. iii. 24, 189.

63 Ibid. ii. 182.

64 Ibid. ii. 191; and cf. Ibid. iii. 150.

65 Ibid. ii. 189-90; and cf. Leigh Hunt, Lord Byron and Some of His Contemporaries (1828), 186-7.

66 Ibid. ii. 252-4.

67 Leigh Hunt, Lord Byron, &c. 187.

68 The Last Man, i. 79-80.

69 Ibid. i. 81.

70 Ibid. i. 80.

71 Ibid. i. 159.

72 Ibid. i. 189-90.

73 The Last Man, i. 222.

74 Shelley, Magnetic Lady to Her Patient. iii. 5.

75 The Last Man, i. 189.

76 Ibid. ii. 118.

77 Ibid. i. 91.

78 Ibid. i. 89.

79 Ibid. i. 318.

80 Ibid. i. 72-3.

81 Ibid. i .89.

82 Ibid. i. 70.

83 Ibid. i. 317-318.

84 Ibid.. i. 318.

85 The Last Man, i. 318.

86 Ibid. i. 91.

87 Ibid. i. 90.

88 Ibid. i. 92.

89 The Last Man i. 190-1.

90 Ibid. i. 191 and cf. ii. 135.

91 The Last Man, i. 193; and cf. i. 204.

92 Ibid. i. 202, 204, 207-8.

93 Ibid. i. 209-10.

94 Ibid. i. 274.

95 Ibid. i. 275-6. This seems to be truer of Mary than Claire.

96 Cf. Dowden, Life of Percy Bysshe Shelley ii. 108, 120-3, and Falkner ii. 22.

97 The Last Man. ii. 188.

98 Cf. Dowden, Life of Percy Bysshe Shelley ii. 121.

99 The Last Man, ii. 233-4. Cf. C. and M. C. Clarke's Recollections of Writers (1878), pg. 151.

100 The Last Man, i. 280-2.

101 The Fortunes of Perkin Warbeck, in. 53.

102 The Last Man, ii. 183-4.

103 Ibid. iii. 21.

104 The Fortunes of Perkin Warbeck, ii. 172.

105 Valperga, i. 44-5.

106 Ibid. i. 58-9.

107 Valperga, i. 120, 174, 179, 272; ii. 176-7.

108 Ibid. i. 201 seq.; and cf. The Last Man, iii. 329-36.

109 Ibid. i. 205-6.

110 Ibid., i. 208; ii. 124-5.

111 Ibid. i. 102-3.

112 Ibid., ii. 97; and Cf. also The Last Man. in. 324, 326.

113 Valperga, i. 265; ii. 169.

114 Ibid. iii. 112-13.

115 Ibid. ii. 68.

116 Ibid. ii. 176-7, 138-9, 180, 229-30, and iii. 108-9.

117 Milton, Lycidas, 100-1.

118 Cf. Falkner. i. 157-9.

119 Letters and Journals. vi. 120.

120 Falkner. i. 204-5.

121 The Last Man, i. 173.

122 Cf. her letter to Maria Gisborne, August, 1822. Prose Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley (1880) iv. 327.

123 The Fortunes of Perkin Warbeck, ii. 267-8.

124 Valperga, iii. 260-1.

125 The Fortunes of Parkin Warbeck, iii. 169-72.

126 Ibid. iii. 176-7.

127 The Last Man, ii. 81-83.

128 Falkner. ii. 264-7.

129 Ibid. ii. 254-5.

130 Falkner, iii. 34-38.

131 Ibid. i. 20, 30; and ii. 277-8, 281-2.

132 Falkner, i. 245-6, 247-8, 252-3; and iii. 79.

133 Ibid. i. 168; and iii. 252.

134 Ibid. ii. 293.