Mary Shelley

Steve WoodTCCC

1797Mary Wollstonecraft marries William Godwin on March 29; Wollstonecraft has one daughter, Fanny, by Gilbert Imlay.Wollstonecraft and Godwin are known for their social activism and liberal views.

Mary Wollstonecraft and William Godwin

1797Mary Wollstonecraft gives birth to Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin on August 30.Mary Wollstonecraft dies of an infection ten days later.

1801William Godwin marries Mary Jane Vial (also known as Clairmont), who has two children: Charles and Jane (later called Claire).

1803Mary Jane Godwin gives birth to William Godwin, Jr.

1812Percy Bysshe Shelley begins a correspondence with William Godwin in January.

1812On November 11, Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin meets Percy Shelley when he and and his wife Harriet Westbrook dine with the Godwins. She is 15; he is 20.

1814On July 28, Mary and Percy Shelley elope to France, accompanied by Claire Clairmont. Despite his own views concerning sexual freedom and marriage, William Godwin refuses any communication with his daughter for the next two and a half years. They take a six-week tour through France, Switzerland, Germany, and Holland.

1814While in Paris, they leave behind a box of papers. Mary will later suspect it to contain letters "George Byron" uses to blackmail her in 1845.They return to London in September. Mary is pregnant when they return. Shelley eventually introduces Mary to a friend, Thomas Jefferson Hogg.In November, Shelley's wife Harriet gives birth to a son (their second child).

1815In January, Hogg claims to be in love with Mary, while Percy may have been having an affair with Claire.On February 22, Mary gives birth to a daughter, two months premature. The daughter dies on March 26.Almost immediately, Mary gets pregnant again.

1816On January 24, Mary gives birth to a son, William.

1816Claire begins to carry on an affair with Lord Byron. Eventually, Mary, Percy, and Claire leave England to follow Byron (and to avoid Percy's creditors). They settle in Geneva by the end of May, and live there for the summer.

1816Mary begins Frankenstein in response to a ghost story contest and a dream.

1816The family, including the now-pregnant Claire, returns to England at the end of the summer.In October, Mary's half sister Fanny commits suicide.In December, the drowned body of Shelley's wife Harriet is found. Pregnant, she had been missing for a month.On December 30, Shelley and Mary are married, and William Godwin finally reconciles with his daughter.

1817Claire gives birth to Lord Byron's daughter (Alba, then later named Allegra by her father) in January.In March, Shelley is denied custody of his children by Harriet.Mary completes Frankenstein while she herself is pregnant for the third time.She gives birth to a daughter, Clara, on September 2.

1818Frankenstein, or the Modern Prometheus is published on March 11. Several reviewers believe that Percy had actually written the novel.

1818In the summer of 1818, Mary and her family chase Byron around Europe, trying to reconcile him with his daughter.During a hurried journey in Italy in September, Clara gets sick and dies.

1818On December 27, an infant Elena Adelaide is born in Naples. When the child is registered on February 27, 1819, the parents are listed as Percy Shelley and Marina Padurin. The identity of this child remains a mystery. Some theories claim the girl was Percy's illegitimate child; other suggest that she was an infant he planned to adopt in order to replace Clara.

1819The Shelleys continue to live in Italy.Mary gets pregnant again early in the year.On June 7, their son William dies of malaria.“We came to Italy thinking to do Shelley’s health good – but the climate is not by any means warm enough to be of benefit to him, yet it is that that has destroyed my two children” (Letter from June 29, 1819).

1819On November 12, Mary gives birth to the only child that would survive her and her husband; they named this second son Percy Florence.

1820Mary resumes writing.The Shelley family is blackmailed over the mysterious Elena Adelaide. That child dies in June.

1821Mary finishes Valperga.

1822Allegra Byron dies in April.Mary has a miscarriage on June 16.Sometime after July 8, Percy Shelley drowns in a sailing accident. His body is found on July 18.

1822Lord Byron vows to support Mary and Percy Florence, but he soon becomes involved in the war for Greek independence and abandons her.

1823Valperga is published in February. Percy Shelley's father initially refuses to support his grandson unless Mary gives him up; she refuses. A second edition of Frankenstein is published. In July, Mary and her son Percy return to England.

1824Lord Byron dies in Greece.“Byron has become one of the people of the grave – Can I forget his attentions and consolations to me during my deepest misery? Never. Beauty sat upon his countenance and power beamed from his eye – his faults being for the most part weaknesses induced one readily to pardon them. Albe – the dear capricious fascinating Albe has left this desert world” (Letter from May 15, 1824).

1824A volume of Percy's unpublished poems is published, a volume edited by Mary with a signed preface. Mary then learns that Shelley's father will stop Percy Florence's allowance until she both stops publication and promises not to publish any more of her husband's writings in Sir Timothy's lifetime. Mary reluctantly agrees.

1826Mary's The Last Man is published.It is an apocalyptic story of the end of the world, a type of story that would become a staple of science fiction.It is also a thinly veiled portrait of both her husband and Lord Byron.

1826After the publication of The Last Man, Shelley’s father temporarily cuts off his support.Shelley’s son by his first wife dies, and Percy Florence becomes Sir Timothy Shelley’s only male heir.Mary continues to work to support herself and her son by her writings. She writes a number of short stories and novels, as well as critical works and other non-fiction. Most of her works did not appear under her name, because of pressure from Shelley's father. They often appeared as "From the author of Frankenstein."

1830The Fortunes of Perkin Warbeck, A Romance is published.

1831Another edition of Frankenstein is published, this time with some additions and an introduction by Mary Shelley.

1835Lodore is published.

1836William Godwin dies.

1837Falkner, A Novel is published. This is Mary’s sixth and last novel.

1838Percy Shelley's father finally relents on allowing his son's works to be published, although he does not want any mention made of his son's life in an introduction or biographical sketch.

1839Mary's four-volume edition of Poetical Words of Percy Bysshe Shelley is published; she dedicates the edition to Percy Florence. She gets around the prohibition of Shelley's father with her preface and notes to the individual poems.She also edits and has published her husband's Essays, Letters from Abroad, Translations and Fragments.

1841Percy Florence graduates from Trinity College.Mary's stepmother dies.

1844Percy Shelley's father dies; Percy Florence inherits his estate and title.

1845Someone claiming to be Lord Byron's son tries unsuccessfully to blackmail Mary.

1851Mary dies on February 1.Among her personal effects is found Percy’s heart, wrapped in a copy of his poem “Adonais” (written for his dead friend John Keats).