Mrs Shelley

Mrs Shelley [with accents]

The Project Gutenberg EBook of Mrs. Shelley, by Lucy M. Rossetti
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Title: Mrs. Shelley
Author: Lucy M. Rossetti
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MRS. SHELLEY
BY LUCY MADOX ROSSETTI.
1890.

PREFACE.
I have to thank all the previous students of Shelley as poet and
man--not last nor least among whom is my husband--for their loving
and truthful research on all the subjects surrounding the life of Mrs.
Shelley. Every aspect has been presented, and of known material it only
remained to compare, sift, and use with judgment. Concerning facts
subsequent to Shelley's death, many valuable papers have been placed
at my service, and I have made no new statement which there are not
existing documents to vouch for.
This book was in the publishers' hands before the appearance of Mrs.
Marshall's _Life of Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley_, and I have had
neither to omit, add to, nor alter anything in this work, in consequence
of the publication of hers. The passages from letters of Mrs. Shelley to
Mr. Trelawny were kindly placed at my disposal by his son-in-law and
daughter, Colonel and Mrs. Call, as early as the summer of 1888.
Among authorities used are Prof. Dowden's _Life of Shelley_, Mr. W.
M. Rossetti's Memoir and other writings, Mr. Jeaffreson's _Real
Shelley,_ Mr. Kegan Paul's _Life of William Godwin_, Godwin's
_Memoir of Mary Wollstonecraft_, Mrs. Pennell's _Mary
Wollstonecraft Godwin_, &c. &c.
Among those to whom my special thanks are due for original
information and the use of documents, &c., are, foremost, Mr. H.
Buxton Forman, Mr. Cordy Jeaffreson, Mrs. Call, Mr. Alexander

Ireland, Mr. Charles C. Pilfold, Mr. J. H. Ingram, Mrs. Cox, and Mr.
Silsbee, and, for friendly counsel, Prof. Dowden; and I must
particularly thank Lady Shelley for conveying to me her husband's
courteous message and permission to use passages of letters by Mrs.
Shelley, interspersed in this biography.
LUCY MADOX ROSSETTI.

CONTENTS.

CHAPTER I
. PARENTAGE.
CHAPTER II
. GIRLHOOD OF MARY--PATERNAL TROUBLES.
CHAPTER III
. SHELLEY.
CHAPTER IV
. MARY AND SHELLEY.
CHAPTER V
. LIFE IN ENGLAND.
CHAPTER VI
. DEATH OF SHELLEY'S GRANDFATHER, AND BIRTH OF A
CHILD.

CHAPTER VII
. "FRANKENSTEIN".
CHAPTER VIII
. RETURN TO ENGLAND.
CHAPTER IX
. LIFE IN ITALY.
CHAPTER X
. MARY'S DESPONDENCY AND BIRTH OF A SON.
CHAPTER XI
. GODWIN AND "VALPERGA".
CHAPTER XII
. LAST MONTHS WITH SHELLEY.
CHAPTER XIII
. WIDOWHOOD.

CHAPTER XIV
. LITERARY WORK.
CHAPTER XV
. LATER WORKS.
CHAPTER XVI
. ITALY REVISITED.
CHAPTER XVII
. LAST YEARS.

CHAPTER I
.
PARENTAGE.
The daughter of Mary Wollstonecraft and Godwin, the wife of Shelley:
here, surely, is eminence by position, for those who care for the
progress of humanity and the intellectual development of the race.
Whether this combination conferred eminence on the daughter and wife
as an individual is what we have to enquire. Born as she was at a time
of great social and political disturbance, the child, by inheritance, of the
great French Revolution, and suffering, as soon as born, a loss certainly
in her case the greatest of all, that of her noble-minded mother, we can
imagine the kind of education this young being passed through--with
the abstracted and anxious philosopher-father, with the respectable but
shallow-minded step-mother provided by Godwin to guard the young
children he so suddenly found himself called upon to care for, Mary
and two half-sisters about her own age. How the volumes of
philosophic writings, too subtle for her childish experience, would be
pored over; how the writings of