MARY SHELLEY’S

LIFE

1797 : MARY SHELLEY I S BORN. HER MOTHER , MARY WOLLSTONECRAFT GODWIN , D IES FROM AN INFECT ION 11 DAYS LATER .

• 1812: Mary goes to Dundee, Scotland to live with the family of William Baxter, a friend of William Godwin.

• Nov. 11, 1812—Mary likely first meets Percy Shelley on a brief visit home. He's married to his first wife, Harriet Westbrook Shelley. (Shelley had come to meet William Godwin, his idol).

• 1814: Mary returns home to London, meets Percy Shelley for 2nd

time in May.

JANE “CLAIRE”

CLAIRMONT

• July 28, 1814--Mary and Percy "elope" to France.

• Jane/Claire Clairmont accompanies them.

• They travel through France, Switzerland, Germany, and Holland for 6 weeks.

• Mary is not quite 17, soon to be pregnant.

• Harriet Shelley is pregnant as well.

• William Godwin refuses to communicate with Mary for next 2 1/2 years.

• Possible affair between Percy and Jane/Claire during fall/winter 1814-1815

• 1815: Feb. 22--Mary gives birth to premature female child who dies March 6. Writes in her journal: "Dream that my little baby came to life again; that it had only been cold, and that we rubbed it before the fire, and it lived. Awake and find no baby. I think about the little thing all day. Not in good spirits."

• Nov. 30, 1815—Charles Shelley born to Harriet and Percy, their second child.

• 1816: Son William born to Mary and Percy on January 24.

• April, 1816--Claire Clairmont becomes Lord Byron's mistress. Mary meets Byron in London.

• May, 1816--Mary, Percy, and pregnant Claire travel to Italy so Claire can pursue Byron.

JUNE, 1816

• Mary, Percy, and Claire spend summer of Lake Geneva in Switzerland with Byron as neighbor.

• Story competition.

1816, CONT.

• Oct. 9--Fanny Imlay, Mary's half sister, commits suicide. Godwin refuses to i.d. body.

• Dec. 10--Body of Harriet Shelley (pregnant, but not by Shelley) found drowned in Hyde Park.

• Dec 30--Mary and Percy marry.

Hyde Park

1817

• Jan. 12--Claire gives birth to Allegra, her daughter by Byron.

• March--Percy Shelly denied custody of 2 children by first wife.

Allegra Byron

1817, CONT.

• May--Mary completes Frankenstein.• Aug. 22--Percy arranges for

publication of Frankenstein.• Sept. 2--Clara Shelley born.• Nov--History of a Six Week's

Tour published anonymously. (Mary and Percy's account of their honeymoon travels).

1818

• Jan. 1--Frankensteinpublished in three volumes (anonymously).

1818, CONT.

• September--Clara Shelley dies.

• Dec.--Infant, registered on 27 Feb, 1819 as ”Elena Adelaide," is born in Naples. Percy and "Marina Padurin" are listed as the parents. Identity of child still a mystery today. Percy's illegitimate daughter? A daughter the Shelleys planned to adopt to replace loss of Clara?

1819

• June 7--William Shelley dies in Rome (3 years old--model for William Frankenstein in the novel?)• Nov. 12--birth of only child to survive (Percy Florence Shelley).

1820

• Former servant attempts to blackmail the Shelleys over the mysterious Naples child.

• June 10--Elena Adelaide dies.

1822

• April 19--Allegra Byron dies from typhus in a convent school.• June 16--Mary suffers miscarriage of fifth child, almost dies.

1822, CONT.

• July--Percy drowns in boating accident on Gulf of Spezia off Italy. His body burned in a pyre on the beach.

LATER LIFE

• Mary continued to write after Shelley's death, producing five more novels, essays, tales, travel sketches, biographies, notes to Shelley's poems. (Though no later work lived up to Frankenstein).