Biography of Mary Godwin aka Shelley 1797-1851
On 29 Mar 1797 [her father] William Godwin (age 41) and [her mother] Mary Wollstonecraft (age 37) were married probably because Mary Wollstonecraft (age 37) was pregnant with Mary Godwin aka Shelley who was born five months later and who Mary Wollstonecraft (age 37) wanted to be legitimate.
On 10 Sep 1797 [her mother] Mary Wollstonecraft (age 38) died from childbirth eleven days after the birth of Mary Godwin aka Shelley.
On 21 Dec 1801 [her father] William Godwin (age 45) and [her step-mother] Mary Jane de Vial (age 33) were married. She was pregnant at the time; the second marriage of his precipitated by pregnancy. The child died young.
1911 Encyclopædia Britannica. After a while [her future husband] Percy was reconciled to his father, revisited his family in Sussex, and then stayed with a cousin in Wales. Hence he was recalled to London by Miss Harriet Westbrook, who wrote complaining of her father's resolve to send her back to her school, in which she was now regarded with repulsion as having become too apt a pupil of the atheist Shelley. He replied counselling resistance. "She wrote to say" (these are the words of Shelley in a letter to Hogg, dating towards the end of July 1811) "that resistance was useless, but that she would fly with me, and threw herself upon my protection." Shelley, therefore, returned to London, where he found Harriet agitated and wavering; finally they agreed to elope, travelled in haste to Edinburgh, and there, on the 28th of August, were married with the rites of the Scottish Church. Shelley, it should be understood, had by this time openly broken, not only with the dogmas and conventions of Christian religion, but with many of the institutions of Christian polity, and in especial with such as enforce and regulate marriage; he held - with William Godwin (age 55) and some other theorists - that marriage ought to be simply a voluntary relation between a man and a woman, to be assumed at joint option and terminated at the after-option of either party. If, therefore, he had acted upon his personal conviction of the right, he would never have wedded Harriet, whether by, Scotch, English or any other law; but he waived his own theory in favour of thee consideration that in such an experiment the woman's stake, land the disadvantages accruing to her, are out of all comparison with the man's. His conduct, therefore, was so far entirely honourable; and, if it derogated from a principle of his own (a principle which, however contrary to the morality of other people, was and always remained matter of genuine conviction on his individual part), this was only in deference to a higher and more imperious standard of right.
1911 Encyclopædia Britannica. It was towards May 1814 that [her future husband] Shelley first saw Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin (age 16) as a grown-up girl (she was well on towards seventeen); he instantly fell in love with her, and she with him. Just before this, on the 24th of March, Shelley had remarried Harriet in London, apparently with a view to strengthening his position in his relations with his father as to the family property; but, on becoming enamoured of Mary, he seems to have rapidly made up his mind that Harriet should not stand in the way. She was at Bath while he was in London. They had, however, met again in London and come to some sort of understanding before the final crisis arrived-Harriet remonstrating and indignant, but incapable of effective resistance-Shelley sick of her companionship, and bent upon gratifying his own wishes, which as we have already seen were not at odds with his avowed principles of conduct. For some months past there had been bickering's and misunderstandings between him and Harriet, aggravated by the now detested presence of Miss Westbrook in the house; more than this cannot be said, and it seems dubious whether more will be hereafter known. Shelley, and not he alone, alleged grave misdoing on Harriet's part - perhaps mistakenly.
1911 Encyclopædia Britannica. The upshot came on the 28th of July, when [her future husband] Shelley aided Mary (age 16) [Mary Godwin aka Shelley (age 16)] to elope from her father's house, Claire Clairmont (age 16) deciding to accompany them. They crossed to Calais, and proceeded across France into Switzerland. [her father] Godwin (age 58) and his [her mother] wife were greatly incensed. Though he and Mary Wollstonecraft had entertained and avowed bold opinions regarding the marriage-bond, similar to Shelley's own, and had in their time acted upon these opinions, it is not clearly made out that Mary Godwin had ever been encouraged by paternal influence to think or do the like. Shelley and she chose to act upon their own likings and responsibility - he disregarding any claim which Harriet had upon him, and Mary setting at nought her father's authority. Both were prepared to ignore the law of the land and the rules of society. The three young people returned to London in September.
1911 Encyclopædia Britannica. 1816. When she [Mary Godwin aka Shelley (age 18)] was in Switzerland with Shelley and Byron (age 27) in 1816 a proposal was made that various members of the party should write a romance or tale dealing with the supernatural. The result of this project was that Mrs Shelley wrote Frankenstein, Byron the beginning of a narrative about a vampyre, and Dr Polidori (age 20), Byron's physician, a tale named The Vampyre, the authorship of which used frequently in past years to be attributed to Byron himself.
1911 Encyclopædia Britannica. In May 1816 the pair [Bysshe Shelley 1st Baronet and Mary Godwin aka Shelley (age 18)] left England for Switzerland, together with Miss Clairmont (age 18), and their own infant son William. They went straight to Sécheron, near Geneva; Byron (age 28), whose separation from his wife had just then taken place, arrived there immediately afterwards. A great deal of controversy has arisen as to the motives and incidents of this foreign sojourn. The clear fact is that Miss Clairmont (age 18), who had a fine voice and some inclination for the stage, had seen Byron, as connected with the management of Drury Lane theatre, early in the year, and an amorous intrigue had begun between them in London. Prima facie it seems quite reasonable to suppose that she had explained the facts to Shelley or to Mary, or to both, and had induced them to convoy her to the society of Byron abroad; were this finally established as the fact, it would show no inconsistency of conduct, or breach of his own code of sexual morals, on Shelley's part. On the other hand, documentary evidence exists showing that Mary was totally ignorant of the amour shortly before they went abroad. Whether or not they knew of it while they and Claire were in daily intercourse with Byron, and housed close by him on the shore of the Lake of Geneva, may be left unargued. The three returned to London in September 1816, Byron remaining abroad; and in January 1817 Miss Clairmont (age 18) gave birth to his daughter named Allegra.
Around 18 Aug 1816 George "Lord Byron" 6th Baron Byron (age 28), [her future husband] Percy Bysshe Shelley, his future wife Mary Godwin aka Shelley (age 18), John William Polidori (age 20) were staying at the Villa Diodati on the shores of Lake Geneva.
1911 Encyclopædia Britannica. [Percy Bysshe Shelley] The death of Harriet having removed the only obstacle to a marriage with Mary Godwin (age 19), the wedding ensued on the 30th of December 1816, and the married couple settled down at Great Marlow in Buckinghamshire.
1911 Encyclopædia Britannica. Their [[her husband] Percy Bysshe Shelley and Mary Godwin aka Shelley (age 19)] tranquillity was shortly disturbed by a Chancery suit set in motion by Mr Westbrook, who asked for the custody of his two grandchildren, on the ground that Shelley had deserted his wife and intended to bring up his offspring in his own atheistic and anti-social opinions. Lord Chancellor Eldon (age 65) delivered judgment on the 27th of March 1817. He held that Shelley, having avowed condemnable principles of conduct, and having fashioned his own conduct to correspond, and being likely to inculcate the same principles upon his children, was unfit to have the charge of them. He appointed as their curator Dr Hume, an orthodox army physician, who was Shelley's own nominee. The poet had to pay for the maintenance of the children a sum which stood eventually at £120 per annum; if it was at first (as generally stated) £200, that was no more than what he had previously allowed to Harriet.
1911 Encyclopædia Britannica. Frankenstein, published in 1818, when Mrs Shelley (age 20) was at the utmost twenty-one years old, is a very remarkable performance for so young and inexperienced a writer; its main idea is that of the formation and vitalization, by a deep student of the secrets of nature, of an adult man, who, entering the world thus under unnatural conditions, becomes the terror of his species, a half-involuntary criminal, and finally an outcast whose sole resource is self-immolation. This romance was followed by others: Valperga, or the Life and Adventures of Castruccio, Prince of Lucca (1823), an historical tale written with a good deal of spirit, and readable enough even now; The Last Man (1826), a fiction of the final agonies of human society owing to the universal spread of a pestilence—this is written in a very stilted style, but possesses a particular interest because Adrian is a portrait of Shelley; The Fortunes of Perkin Warbeck (1830); Lodore (1835), also bearing partly upon Shelley's biography, and Falkner (1837). Besides these novels there was the Journal of a Six Weeks Tour (the tour of 1814 mentioned below), which is published in conjunction with Shelley's prose-writings; and Rambles in Germany and Italy in 1840–1842–1843 (which shows an observant spirit, capable of making some true forecasts of the future), and various miscellaneous writings. After the death of Shelley, for whom she had a deep and even enthusiastic affection, marred at times by defects of temper, Mrs Shelley in the autumn of 1823 returned to London. At first the earnings of her pen were her only sustenance; but after a while Sir Timothy Shelley made her an allowance, which would have been withdrawn if she had persisted in a project of writing a full biography of her husband.
1911 Encyclopædia Britannica. In 1818 the Shelleys [[her husband] Percy Bysshe Shelley and Mary Godwin aka Shelley (age 20)] - always nearly with Miss Clairmont (age 19) in their company - were in Milan, Leghorn, the Bagni di Lucca, Venice and its neighbourhood, Rome, and Naples; in 1819 in Rome, the vicinity of Leghorn, and Florence (both their infants were now dead, but a third was born late in 1819, Percy Florence Shelly, who in 1844 inherited the baronetcy); in 1820 in Pisa the Bagni di Pisa (or di San Giuliano), and Leghorn; in 1821 in Pisa and with Byron in Ravenna; in 1822 in Pisa and on the Bay of Spezia, between Lerici and Sari Terenzio. The incidents of this period are but few, and of no great importance apart from their bearing upon the poet's writings. In Leghorn he knew Mr and Mrs Gisborne, the latter a once intimate friend of Godwin; she taught Shelley Spanish, and he was eager to promote a project for a steamer to be built by her son by a former marriage, the engineer Henry Reveley; it would have been the first steamer to navigate the Gulf of Lyons.
On 12 Nov 1819 [her son] Percy Florence Shelley 3rd Baronet was born to [her husband] Percy Bysshe Shelley and Mary Godwin aka Shelley (age 22).
On 08 Jul 1822 [her husband] Percy Bysshe Shelley drowned. He was returning on the Don Juan with Edward Williams from a meeting at Livorno with Leigh Hunt and Byron to make arrangements for a new journal, The Liberal. The boat was sunk is a storm. Shelley's badly decomposed body washed ashore at Viareggio ten days later and was identified by Trelawny from the clothing and a copy of Keats's Lamia in a jacket pocket. On 16 Aug 1822 his body was cremated on a beach near Viareggio and the ashes were buried in the Protestant Cemetery of Rome. The cremation was attended by George "Lord Byron" 6th Baron Byron (age 34). His wife Mary Godwin aka Shelley (age 24) did not attend.
1911 Encyclopædia Britannica. In 1838 she [Mary Godwin aka Shelley (age 40)] edited Shelley's works, supplying the notes that throw such invaluable light on the subject. She succeeded, by strenuous exertions, in maintaining her son Percy at Harrow and Cambridge; and she shared in the improvement of his fortune when in 1840 his grandfather acknowledged his responsibilities and in 1844 he succeeded to the baronetcy.
In 1840. Richard Rothwell (age 39). Portrait of Mary Godwin aka Shelley (age 42).
Around 1842. Richard Rothwell (age 41). Portrait of Mary Godwin aka Shelley (age 44).
1911 Encyclopædia Britannica. She [Mary Godwin aka Shelley (age 53)] died on the 21st of February 1851. [Note. Some sources state 01 Feb 1821]
1911 Encyclopædia Britannica. 1911. SHELLEY, MARY WOLLSTONECRAFT (1797–1851), English writer, only daughter of William Godwin and his wife Mary Wollstonecraft, and second wife of the poet Percy Bysshe Shelley, was born in London on the 30th of August 1797. For the history of her girlhood and of her married life see Godwin, William, and Shelley, P. B.