I appreciated the contextual information in the introduction and found the additional writings in the appendices to be a valuable enhancement to the listening experience. The narration was engaging and well-suited to the tone of the work. Overall, I’d rate this audiobook a 3.

Thank you to NetGalley for providing a copy in exchange for an honest review.

This was REALLY good. Absolutely loved the beginning to include the history and scandal behind the potential publication. The publisher deciding to ignore these in 1959 is truly a hero.
Reading this is an opportunity to face our past histories and revel in our change in humanity, and also how stagnant we are as a species today.
This story explores humanity to its core and temptations of our animalistic tendencies to face societal norms. We also get the opportunity to explore the psyche of humanity when placed in these situations, romanticizing suicide and feminism.
This story really touches you to the core if you allow it.

The first quarter of this was basically a thesis on the book. Mathilda itself was well written, and intriguing in a taboo sense, but in combination with the audio narrator it was incredibly dramatic/theatric and I was often annoyed by it. I didnt continue the rest of the audio which also includes the Mourner for this reason. Thanks Highbridge audio and NetGalley for the ARC

Oh! Ok! Now I know why this one was hidden for some time. This book made me feel pretty icky, but Shelley is a great writer.

I’m left thinking about a lot of things though, and have a lot of questions.

Thank you to Netgalley and Highbridge Audio for allowing me to listen to an ARC of this audiobook. I've never read anything by Mary Shelley and know her as the author of Frankenstein. This book begins with a very long introduction, which I really appreciated. It grounded me in her era, her marriage to Shelley, and her political beliefs, particularly incest and suicide, which are expressed in this book. That all helped me appreciate Mathilda. and the three short stories that follow it. Frances Butt, the narrator, read the story as if Mathilda was always in a state of high anxiety. I'm sure she was a lot of the time.
Mathilda's mother died in childbirth. Her father sent her away to be raised by schools and others. She wasn't treated very well. She finally met her father when he called her home at 16. She adored him. And all went well for awhile until he started ignoring her and she didn't know what she had done wrong.
Honestly, I had to push myself to finish the story. I think it was the narrator and her really annoying tone of voice. I wanted to give up on Mathilda when really I wanted to get rid of Frances But. I'm glad I read it, it was so hard for women to get published back then and probably because of Frankenstein, Shelley's work has survived to today. I think it great that a whole new generation gets to read her and compare writing from 200 years ago to today.

I was very excited to listen to this new audio version of this story, but I was really let down. First of all, it starts with an hour of academic claptrap about how the incest in this book is really about renegotiating interior and exterior borders in a climate of global expansion, and of course, white supremacy. Honestly terrible and full of itself. But when I got to the story, I found it nearly unlistenable. The narrator speaks in this overdone way that made it extremely hard for the words to really land in my brain. It's excessively dramatized and there is weird pacing. Very unnatural way of speaking. I can't rate the story because I couldn't make it through this audiobook. I hope to read the story or listen to another audio version in the future, and will rate it for content when I do so.

Ah, Mary Shelley, you deserved the whole world. I adored this audiobook! The narrator did a fantastic job of bringing it to life and was very engaging. To be writing such a story, especially being a woman, at her time. It’s incredibly inspiring! She never got to see this one published as her father kept it locked away. It’s a must-read classic and it’s only short! An excellent novella on grief.

Insufferably weepy, both in tone and audiobook narration. Is it messed up that her dad was in love with her? Yes. Does the writing in this book make me care about the emotional impact of this violation? No. If you're going to write about such a traumatic thing, you absolutely have to be able to convey the gravity of it, which I do not think this book accomplished. Sure, the character was wrecked by the discovery, but she was so lacking in any sort of personality beyond loving her father, that I just couldn't see her as if she was a real person experiencing this trauma. It was all so one note.

Eerily reminiscent of Lolita and that comparison alone speaks volumes. Honestly, an unsettling read for such a short story. It leaves you feeling gutted and questioning the boundaries of love and obsession.

Second novel written by Shelley and it is dark and mysterious. Full of strong desires for love and death. Introduced by Deanna Koretsky, we get an insight to the themes covered in this novel. Very interesting.

Well written and well narrated novel (I listened to the audiobook. Strong characters in the dark novel. We have desire, longing, love and death. Quite a mystery.

i wish mary shelley had the opportunity to publish this in her lifetime with more edits as this is super strong in so many parts. it’s an incredibly depressing book with pretty much no happy moments for matilda; her fathers incestuous feelings towards her, her own suicidal ideation, and the pessimism she has for the relationships around her are all fighting to be the most tremendous sadness that plagues her.

This story was interesting, nothing can ever top Frankenstein for me but I'm glad I got to read the story finally. It is definitely a lesser known story by Shelley. The narrator did an excellent job.

Overall I really enjoyed this book! I loved the story and how the sensation topic was covered. I enjoyed the narrator too. It would’ve been 5 stars but I just feel like something was missing.

In the beginning I really enjoyed this book. Shelley’s writing is stunning and the narrator does a phenomenal job at bringing the emotion and drama to this piece. However, about half way through it did start to carry on and be redundant in my opinion.

This audio was fantastic! I’ll always love a Mary Shelley book, the writing was dramatic and evocative and despite the disturbing subject matter, it was really enjoyable bc of how stunning the writing was, how deeply emotional,, really glad to have listened to this one the narrator did a brilliant job!!

I happily report that I learned about how 18th-century English authors employ the theme of suicide and 19th-century Gothic and Romantic writers use incest to critique society. In Shelley’s second novel, Mathilda, kept hidden by her father until its publication in 1959, she utilizes both motifs “as a literary shorthand.” Koretsky’s insightful introduction to OUP’s new edition of Mathilda whetted my appetite for Shelley’s novel, and this helped me enjoy the work. Shelley examines one’s assertion of rational individual choice from a feminist lens following the Enlightenment. She also explores the English family’s blood purity, which gatekeeps the privilege of whiteness. I tried to keep these critiques of social and political institutions and more in mind throughout the short novel, and I circled back to the introductory notes once I finished the book.

I enjoyed the narrator's voice. TThe romantic, fawning quality was not my favorite, but I understand the narrator's choice given the content's nature.

My thanks to HighBridge Audio and NetGalley for an ARC of OUP’s new edition of Mathilda.

I recently listened to Mathilda by Mary Shelley and am unsure on how I feel about this book. Granted, I’ve only read Frankenstein by Mary Shelly. I wish I would have done more research before listening to his audio book.

However Frances Butt’s voice is clear while reading.

This is definitely an interesting read! This little novella was filled with incestuous obsession.

The writing was gorgeous. Although, a bit over my head with the classic nature of the story, but I can absolutely still appreciate it. It was a spiral of melodrama, obsession, and gorgeous pacing that had you feeling like you were immersed in a full novel.

I appreciated the forward to explain this book before going into as well, and it was able to give me some great insight before diving into this audiobook.

Thank you for the opportunity to listen to this one!

'Mathilda' is a novella by Mary Shelley and is quite atmospheric and moody, with some challenging themes. This edition also provides an introductory explanation of the short story as well as additional works of the author in the appendix.

The story is actually rather intriguing, with gothic imagination, and dark plotlines.

The narrator also did an amazing job with their performance and made the story even more intense and emotional.

The short stories in the end were interesting as well, but some were not as good as others.

This review is also posted on Goodreads and Storygraph.

This audiobook contains excellent forwards around the themes of racism, incest, suicide, and colonialism that are features in Shelley's Mathilda. In addition to the forewords and the main audiobook, this recording also includes several appendixes featuring other short works by Shelley. It was a passionate and enjoyable read, with the narrator doing a wonderful job capturing the feeling Shelley put into the works.