Mary Shelley

1797 - 1851 *

novelist of the Romantic period, best remembered for her novel Frankenstein

English Romantic novelist, biographer and editor, best known as the writer of FRANKENSTEIN, OR, THE MODERN PROMETHEUS (1818). Shelley was 21 when the book was published; she started to write it when she was 18. The story deals with an ambitious young scientist. He creates life but then rejects his creation, a monster.

"But success shall crown my endeavours. Wherefore not? Thus far I have gone, tracking a secure way over the pathless seas: the very stars themselves being witnesses and testimonies of my triumph. Why not still proceed over the untamed yet obedient element? What can... [read entire biography]

          Source: Petri Liukkonen

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 3oth of August 1797. For the history of her girlhood and of her married life see GoDwIN, WILLIAM, and SHELLEY, P.B. When she was in Switzerland with Shelley and Byron in 1816 a proposal was made that various members of the party should write a romance or tale dealing with the supernatural. The resul... [read entire biography]

          Source: External Publication

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Mary Shelley and the Desire to Acquire Knowledge: As Demonstrated in the Novel Frankenstein -- Biographical Account of Mary Shelley in relation to Frankenstein.
By Jeremy D'sylva, High School Student	Editorial Rating:

Frankenstein: It Takes Time To Love A Homicidal Jumble Of Walking Corpses -- Examining the change in critical readings of Frankenstein over time.
By Ian Fortey, High School Student	Editorial Rating:

Synopsis of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein -- Detailed synopsis of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein
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Then black despair,
The shadow of a starless night, was thrown
Over the world in which I moved alone. -- The Revolt of Islam. Dedication, Stanza 6.

Percy Bysshe Shelley

With hue like that when some great painter dips
His pencil in the gloom of earthquake and eclipse. -- The Revolt of Islam. Canto v. Stanza 23.

Percy Bysshe Shelley

The awful shadow of some unseen Power
Floats, tho' unseen, amongst us. -- Hymn to Intellectual Beauty.

Percy Bysshe Shelley

The Pilgrim of Eternity, whose fame
Over his living head like heaven is bent,
An early but enduring monument,
Came, veiling all the lightnings of his song
In sorrow. -- Adonais. xxx.

Percy Bysshe Shelley

A pard-like spirit, beautiful and swift. -- Adonais. xxxii.

Percy Bysshe Shelley

Life, like a dome of many-coloured glass,
Stains the white radiance of eternity. -- Adonais. lii.

Percy Bysshe Shelley

O thou,
Who chariotest to their dark wintry bed
The winged seeds, where they lie cold and low,
Each like a corpse within its grave, until
Thine azure sister of the spring shall blow
Her clarion o'er the dreaming earth. -- Ode to the West Wind.

Percy Bysshe Shelley

Thou who didst waken from his summer dreams
The blue Mediterranean, where he lay,
Lull'd by the coil of his crystalline streams
Beside a pumice isle in Baiæ's bay,
And saw in sleep old palaces and towers
Quivering within the wave's intenser day,
All overgrown with azure moss and flowers
So sweet, the sense faints picturing them. -- Ode to the West Wind.

Percy Bysshe Shelley

That orbed maiden with white fire laden,
Whom mortals call the moon. -- The Cloud. iv.

Percy Bysshe Shelley

We look before and after,
And pine for what is not;
Our sincerest laughter
With some pain is fraught;
Our sweetest songs are those that tell of saddest thought. -- To a Skylark. Line 86.

Percy Bysshe Shelley

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Additional searches

Shelley at Encarta Encyclopedia

Shelley at Britannica Encyclopedia

Shelley at Xrefer.com

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* Some dates of birth and death are approximated. If this is the case, see note at the end of biography, above. Dates of birth and death are AD, unless otherwise specified.