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).