In Search of Mary Shelley: The Girl Who Wrote Frankenstein

The blurb claiming that there hasn't been a new biography of Mary Shelley this century is not quite true: Charlotte Gordon's dual biography of Wollstonecraft and Shelley (Romantic Outlaws) was published only a couple of years ago. All the same, Sampson does something quite different here: eschewing biographical neutrality, she gets down and dirty by inserting herself into the story and making her own moral judgements very clear. She has little time for Percy Shelley which is refreshing, and writes in the present tense to give an imaginative immediacy to the story she is telling. Less defendable, is her presentist stance which has her bracketing her characters as 'teenagers', a category which doesn't have currency in the period of which she is writing. Despite some historical misgivings, this is a fresh and different approach to the well-known life of Mary Shelley and is worth reading even if you're familiar with the woman, her life and writings.

In Search of Mary Shelley is a new biography of the author in time for the 200th anniversary of the publication of Frankenstein. It aims to look for the person behind the famous novel and her famous poet husband and writer parents (the latter being Mary Wollstonecraft and William Godwin, for those who don’t know much about her life). Of course, other biographies do that too, but Sampson’s is a concise and approachable book that suits a wide audience and those wanting to dip into the writer’s life for her most well-known creation’s anniversary.

The introduction talks about the difference between the prevalent cultural image of Frankenstein—a science fiction horror story with a futuristic vibe and a huge green monster—and the reality of the novel and its connections to the past, to Romanticism, and to thinking of Mary Shelley’s time. It also counterpoints her reputation as the wife of Percy Bysshe Shelley that lasted for a long time, pointing out the time it took for more critical discussion of her. Beyond this opening, it is a fairly straightforward account of Mary Shelley’s life, though each chapter tends to start with a time jump and then backtrack to fill in the detail, possibly to keep more casual readers engaged. It is punchy and balances not being bogged down with explaining who all the key figures are, whilst using a fairly informal tone to keep it readable.

As with all Mary Shelley biographies, the author has to make some implicit value judgements about key figures, particularly Percy, though it is unlikely even his fans will argue with some of his faults given by Sampson. She paints Mary as a varied and interesting woman and, though self-consciously speeds up after Percy’s death, doesn’t discount all the years of writing after Percy’s death. The main downside to the biography is also its selling point to some readers: it covers all the major events and characters, but is not hugely detailed. It doesn’t, for example, quote letters and journals as much as other literary biographies; this makes it far more accessible to a casual reader, but lacks some of the colour and interesting snippets that can be found in other books. This can be made up for, however, by supplementing with existing books such as Charlotte Gordon’s Romantic Outlaws (on both Shelley and her mother Mary Wollstonecraft and, as such, a very large book) or Daisy Hay’s short and also readable Young Romantics.

Sampson’s biography of Mary Shelley is perfect for those who know far more about Frankenstein (or think they do!) than its author, or perhaps for people who want to know more about the female writers who are so often misrepresented even in the modern day in simplistic or even offensive ways. It is a chance for people to look past the image of an eighteen-year-old magically conjuring a sci-fi novel out of nowhere and then solely being a poet’s wife, and see past these myths and misrepresentations to understand the intellectual, political, and social world in which Mary Shelley and Frankenstein came from.

This is a wonderful book which i loved dipping in and out of, Of course to get the full benefit of this brightly and informative book, it should be read from cover to cover.
The 'blurb' says that this is a book, that is written about the real Madame Shelley, this I cannot atain as being the truth, as this is the first book I have read about this author.
I am not a one, bor biographies, but I did like to learn more about the woman, what made her tick etc
I am also ashamed to say that I have not read Frankenstein either.
Does this book make me want to? ...perhaps, especially as this is a celebration of the 200 years since the book was publsihed.
I will for sure, like this for my library :)

As the author of this biography makes clear in the introduction, Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein is, among many other things, a novel about being human and the anxieties that come with it. Mary herself was all too aware of these with her own, constant struggle to affirm her independence as a human being first, and then as a writer, in a time when women were considered incapable to look after themselves, let alone to write.

This book is a succinct but detailed recount of this struggle, and it's not focused on Mary Shelley only, but on all the people who felt the consequences of her life choices just as she felt the consequences of others: Percy Bhysse Shelley, the married poet with whom Mary eloped when she was only 17, always lived up to the high but unconventional ideals his poetry was impregnated with; on the other hand William Godwin, Mary's father and holder of some of the most revolutionary views about the freedom of the individual from social constraint, too often failed to apply those views to his and his family's life.

In this biography, the events of Mary Shelley's life are combined with her views on the social context in which she lived, views which were philosophical rather than political and strongly influenced by Mary Wollstonecraft's heritage, and her more intimate feelings, quite difficult to investigate as Mary Shelley's never recorded them in her journals, as if she wanted to hide them.

The book makes an important reference for who wants to know more about Mary Shelley's life, her will to live according to her dead mother's principles, the circle of Romantic poets she spent her youth in, and that masterpiece, Frankenstein, in which all this plays a fundamental role.

From the distance of 200 years, Mary Shelley's life looks to be composed of high adventure and devastating tragedy. Sampson brings to life the gentle but determined woman at the centre of the storm in a luxuriously literary wild ride into the 19th Century lives of some of the most glittering thinkers of the time.

Born towards the end of the 18th Century to Mary Wollstonecraft and William Godwin, Mary Shelley had everything and nothing. She was a woman at a time when women were largely seen as objects, ornaments, and child-bearers, but she was also a woman born to one of the foremothers of feminism, and though her mother died of puerperal fever within days of Mary's birth, her father saw to it that Mary received an informal but excellent education: not only was she exposed to, and encouraged to read, her father's extensive library, but she also had her parents' well-educated intellectual and artistic friends surrounding her throughout her childhood. Indeed, she eloped with a boy to whom her father was the 'intellectual mentor' – Percy Bysshe Shelley – on whose later suggestion she wrote a 'ghost story' that became Frankenstein.

So far, so good, and this much of Mary's story is well-known. But what is rather shrouded in the shadows of the passage of time is the depth of her life – this teenage girl who wrote a book that is stunning in its high-concept central thread – a monster sewn together from the remains of the dead and then horrifyingly reanimated to life – and which slowly, creepingly, terrifyingly, routs out our deepest fears of mortality and loneliness in its portrayal of that monster as a living creature who looks out from its malformed patchwork body and sees that it is damned to be always alone. A creature who thinks and feels and weeps and runs away: a creature, in fact, who could almost be any one of us.

The author, Sampson, is a highly regarded poet, and her poems have an encompassing and luxurious inclusiveness as she shows us the mundane and obvious in our lives with a new and wonder-filled eye. On the Poetry Archive website is a freely available recording of her poem Drowned Man, read by the poet herself, which reveals a whole other, submerged, world in the unconscious, restless tossings and turnings of a night's sleep with one's partner.

Sampson brings her poet's curious and incisive eye, which looks so closely at the inner workings of people's lives and secret thoughts, longings and existence, to Mary Shelley's life and first work, asking: what gave this young girl the insight and talent to write such a novel, and why does it keep proving so popular and so utterly, brain-deep frightening? Sampson dives into what is known about Mary's often unhappy life – through the journals and letters of Mary and her friends – to seek an answer, both revealing and inspiring something akin to an obsession with getting to the heart of what made Mary tick, and what, exactly, her life was made of.

Sampson's research and conclusions are brilliant, revealing a young girl tormented by demons and doubts, who became a woman tormented by pain and grief. The child is father to the man, Sampson asserts quite early in the book, and Frankenstein appears to be the outlet for pain and grief for Mary, and to be not just about the psychological monsters that haunt her, but to be her counsellor through trauma.

By necessity – this is, after all, the biography of a long-dead woman who lived in a society the customs and practices of which can only be known second-hand – the narrative threads that hold together the facts of Mary's story are the well-educated guesswork of Sampson regarding the motivations, aims and thoughts of Mary and her retinue of friends, family, petty enemies and rivals. Fortunately, Sampson is always clear in her train of thought for these, and illustrates with evidence from journals, letters, and known events and meetings.

In Search of Mary Shelley is a delicious book that reads almost like a novel of Mary Shelley's life, so thoroughly rounded is the portrait of her, as well as a deep exploration of both her life and the times she lived through. Highly recommended to any fan of this period of English history, or to anyone who has ever shivered at the lonely fate of one of our most haunting monsters.

I received a review copy of this book from the publisher via NetGalley

This wonderful and insightful biography of Mary Shelley by Fiona Sampson is not only a straight forward chronological biography but explores and delves into themes and influences that were integral to the life and legacy of this remarkable woman. The influence of her mother who died in childbirth, the philosopher and feminist Mary Wollstonecraft and her father the radical thinker William Godwin together with the other radical poets, philosophers and writers of the day that were often to be found at the Godwin house were instrumental in shaping her outlook and future writing.

Mary Shelley was certainly a complex character and the biography tries to make sense and understand the reasons for this complexity. Even today there is still dispute over her political and feminist outlook. Was she really a radical or more a conservative who believed in a more Burkean evolutionary approach to the development of humanity.

She is of course primarily remembered as the author of Frankenstein and how and why this book came to be written forms an integral part of the biography. Also explored in depth is her marriage with Percy Bysshe Shelley whom she eloped with to France when just aged 16 and how she subsequently had to endure his infidelity and the deaths of three children before his own tragic death at sea changed her life forever.

The biography also looks in detail at Mary's other some what forgotten works and what influenced their writing together with the legacy she has today. As someone who was not greatly knowledgeable about this period and the literary themes of the time I found the book very accessable and will lead one to look out for other books concerning this period. Certainly I would strongly recommend this biography for both the causal reader and those who already have an interest and understanding of this period.

This title was received from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
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Released January 2018, which marks the 200th anniversary of the publication of 'Frankenstein' - the subject of this memoir is a fascinating literary figure to me, not only because she's a woman but incredibly she wrote her most well-known novel at the age of just nineteen.
I have myself often felt that the true talent of authors of classic 'horrors' such as Frankenstein (as well as Dracula) have suffered as a result of becoming sensationalised in pop culture. Their characters have been reduced almost to cliche Halloween costume monsters in most people's minds eye, but there's obviously so much more to these beloved literary classics than that, and indeed the author of 'Frankenstein' herself. Despite only having lived for nineteen years upon writing it, Mary Shelley can be considered precocious for many reasons which are explored respectfully by Sampson here.
'In Search of Mary Shelley...' presents itself as intellectual and well researched. For someone who's knowledge of the subject is vague, Sampson brings to life enough historical details to paint a colourful picture of Shelley's formative years in order to develop an understanding of where Frankenstein came from, and what it would in turn create.

This would be a great addition to any classic horror or gothic literature fans library.

Fiona Sampson takes a look at the woman who was the force behind one of literature’s classic books, Frankenstein is a title recognised around the world. It has been dissected and discussed numerous times, but what about its creator.

Mary Shelley wrote this book at the age of 18, two years after her marriage to Percy Shelley, she was at the time considered to be an intellectual thinker. This is a time when women are seen as an object or a piece of the furniture, not to have opinions or views that are meaningful.

Fiona has, I feel, done her research well using a number of documents, journals and letters to build up a picture of this young woman’s life. She has created an in-depth narrative that has an easy flow to it and makes for good reading, it is insightful and full of details.

This is a wonderful read that would appeal to readers of biographies and memoirs of literary greats. It has the air of a well researched book, is well written and presented. My first time reading any work by this author, I may have to look at reading more.

I received my copy for my honest and unbiased opinion via NetGalley and the publishers, my thanks to them for this opportunity.

A fascinating an ambitious biography of an exceptional woman and a brilliant writer who went against the constraints of conventional life expected from a woman in the 19th century.
Engaging and compelling.

Fiona Sampson paints the portrait of the woman behind Frankenstein and attempts to discover what made a young girl write such a compelling and dark story that still haunts our imagination. Although we know a lot of things about her fictitious monster, and we know more things about the men who surrounded her during her life, how much do we really know about Mary Shelley herself? Sampson's book is not the first biography of the famous author but it is the first written in this century through contemporary eyes.

It is recommended to fans of the Romantics and everyone who is a fan of the horror genre and its predecessor, Frankenstein.

I enjoyed this biography immensely, it’s beautifully written, well researched, and tangibly evokes the lives of those it considers. But I’m not quite sure that Sampson achieves what she claims she will in her introduction.
I think the problem is that this portrait feels so curated, with such imaginative painting of scenes, sections of life removed and glossed over, that it does not feel authentic. That's not to say this is not a valuable work, but the result is more evocative than it is informative. This isn't the biography I expected, but Sampson doesn't apologise for this being more a creative exercise than an academic one. I can't help but admire its brilliance.