Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley (1797-1851), the author of
the gothic, horror novel Frankenstein, or the Modern Prometheus (1818), was the daughter of radical, celebrated and interesting parents.
 |
| Mary Shelley |
Mary's mother was the philosopher and feminist, Mary Wollstonecraft, who wrote
A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792). A book which argued that women were not inferior to men; that they only needed educational opportunities.
.jpg) |
| Mary Wollstonecraft |
Wollstonecraft objected to the way that society demanded that girls be brought up, as empty-headed flirts, who were only interested in trivialities; she believed this was morally depraved. She saw women as being trapped by their lack of serious education and training, in a life that was all about appearances.
Mary's mother, also, did not
believe in marriage, which was a fairly scandalous notion in 1793, when at age 34, she fell in love with an American named Gilbert Imlay, whom she'd met during the French Revolution. Wollstonecraft became pregnant and gave birth to a girl named, Fanny. However, when the child was 4 months old, Gilbert left on a business trip and never came back.
Sadly, after her death, Wollstonecraft's very important and groundbreaking ideas were overshadowed by her reputation as a fallen woman.
 |
| William Godwin |
Mary's father was also an important philosopher named William Godwin. He was one of the founders of the still highly relevant philosophy of Utilitarianism and a supporter of Anarchism. Godwin, like Wollstonecraft, believed that marriage was "an affair of property" and an act of tyranny and degradation. Mary's parents, however, did go against their own beliefs, as they did marry, as they did not want to
harm the future prospects of their daughter.
Going against their principals went to waste for Mary's parents, as later, while still a teenager, Mary eloped with the already
married Romantic poet and philosopher, Percy Bysshe Shelley. But she did marry Shelley and she went on to write the hugely important and thought-provoking novel,
Frankenstein.
Books To Read
Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus is a novel written by English author Mary Shelley.
