Inspirational Quotations

Inspirational Quotes by Mary Shelley (English Novelist)

Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley (1797–1851,) born Mary Godwin, was an English novelist, short story writer, biographer, and travel writer. The wife of Romantic poet Percy Bysshe Shelley, she is famous for her Gothic horror novel Frankenstein (1818.)

Born in London, Shelley was the daughter of the feminist philosopher Mary Wollstonecraft and the political philosopher William Godwin. She grew up surrounded by literary celebrities of her day, including William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge. When she was 16, she fell in love with one of her father’s students, poet Percy Bysshe Shelley, who was already married.

The lovers fled to Europe and got married after the suicide of Percy’s wife Harriet (1816.) In the summer of that year, Mary and Percy Shelly stayed in Switzerland with Lord Byron, John Polidori, and Jane Clairmont. Byron and Percy spent long hours by the firelight, telling ghost stories. They also debated philosophical matters—the nature of life and the possibility of reviving the dead. Stirred by these discussions, Mary wrote a horror story about a scientist who develops a monstrous being out of dead bodies, only to have that monster destroy the scientist’s family. This story developed into her renowned Gothic horror novel, Frankenstein or, The Modern Prometheus (1818.) The story of Frankenstein’s monster was first staged as a play in 1823 in London and was followed shortly after that by a musical burlesque. Today, Frankenstein is recognized as a work of great philosophical and psychological significance; there are over 80 movies with the word “Frankenstein” in their titles.

Mary Shelley also published several biographies and short stories, most of which were published in the literary annual The Keepsake. She wrote other novels, including The Last Man (1826,) Falkner (1837,) and the partly autobiographical Ladore (1835,) and edited her husband’s works.

More: Wikipedia READ: Works by Mary Shelley

My dreams were all my own; I accounted for them to nobody; they were my refuge when annoyed—my dearest pleasure when free.
Mary Shelley
Topics: Dreams

Elegance is inferior to virtue.
Mary Shelley

Life is obstinate and clings closest where it is most hated.
Mary Shelley
Topics: Life and Living

Nothing contributes so much to tranquilizing the mind as a steady purpose-a point on which the soul may fix its intellectual eye.
Mary Shelley

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