In Search of Mary Shelley

April 2, 2018
To mark the bicentennial of Frankenstein’s publication, poet Sampson (Limestone Country) has created an incisive and emotionally resonant portrait of Mary Shelley, the brilliant woman who wrote that dark masterpiece. In an often speculative but persuasive portrait of Shelley’s inner and outer life, Sampson takes Shelley out of the shadow of her prodigious, radical parents, Mary Wollstonecraft and William Godwin, and her husband, the poet Percy Bysshe Shelley. Wollstonecraft died soon after giving birth to Mary, and Sampson argues that the search for a mother figure never ended for Shelley, who maintained an antagonistic relationship with her stepmother, and drew close to female friends of her mother later in life. Themes of birth, death, and creativity permeated both Shelley’s writing and her life. She experienced loss on an almost unimaginable scale, including the deaths of three of her four children in their youth, and yet persevered in her dream of being a writer. Because so much of Shelley’s early correspondence was lost, Sampson often relies on conjecture to get inside her subject’s mind and feelings. This approach may not be to everyone’s taste, but it creates an almost cinematic picture of long-ago events and succeeds in bringing an unconventional woman to vivid life. Agent: George Lucas, InkWell Management.

April 15, 2018

Poet and classically trained violinist Sampson (The Catch) brings a luminous vision to her new biography of Mary Shelley (1797-1851). Too often, studies of Shelley intended for wide readerships--as this book is--lean too heavily on reader response criticism and focus on Frankenstein's creature as a cultural icon, at the expense of representing Shelley's story. Sampson valuably addresses why Frankenstein possesses such enduring power: the monster "lets us play with the anxieties we have about human nature itself" on the screen. On the page, there is more, for the narrative forces readers to "choose between two truths." The moral ambiguities of the novel and its later incarnations provide a significant subtext to Sampson's well-researched contribution to research on Shelley's life and times. Shelley "forced open the space for herself in which to write," notes Sampson, and left behind a huge blueprint for "writing women, for the always emerging, always creative, scientific imagination and for the dreams and nightmares of the Western world," a truth as necessary for us now as it was during the 19th century. VERDICT Highly recommended for general readers interested in women's writing and literary history.--Emily Bowles, Univ. of Wisconsin, Madison

Copyright 2018 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

April 15, 2018
A fresh biography of Mary Shelley (1797-1851), who created the monster that has become "part of our shared imagination."Mary's mother, Mary Wollstonecraft, died just after she was born, leaving her and her older, illegitimate sister, Fanny, to be raised by her father, William Godwin. Since her parents were two of the leading political philosophers of the time, Mary received a fine education in the humanities, developing her reasoning skills. Godwin was also an anarchist and utilitarian who seemed to approve of the Romantic poets and free love--except for Percy Shelley. As his protégé, Shelley met Mary when she was 16, and he was married with a pregnant wife. They soon ran off to Europe and took Mary's stepsister, Jane, with them. Throughout the marriage, they shared their talents and supported and encouraged each other. But Shelley handled money poorly, and they soon had to return to London to the first of innumerable homes throughout Europe. Jane, who soon changed her name to Claire, met and fell for Lord Byron and persuaded Percy and Mary to meet up with him at Lake Geneva. As Sampson (Lyric Cousins: Poetry and Musical Form, 2016, etc.) shows in this perceptive biography, it was there that Frankenstein was born, with Byron's challenge to write ghost stories. Begun when she was 19, Mary's novel, often considered the first work of science fiction, was finished and published before she was 21. With it, she changed the face of fiction, revealing the experimental spirit of the Romantic period. Unfortunately, their marriage was also experimental and filled with inequities. Shelley was a firm believer in free love, particularly for himself. After a series of pregnancies and only one surviving child, Mary still believed in their love, even more so after his death. Throughout, Sampson demonstrates why the story of Shelley and Frankenstein remains so intriguing, even today.The author deftly plumbs the depths of Mary's psyche to enlighten us about both Shelleys and reveal the profound effects they had on each other.

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