Until the 1970s, Mary Shelley was known mainly for her efforts to publish Percy Shelley's works and for her novel Frankenstein, which remains widely read and has inspired many theatrical and film adaptations. Recent scholarship has yielded a more comprehensive view of Mary Shelley's achievements. Scholars have shown increasing interest in her literary output, particularly in her novels, which include the historical novels Valperga (1823) and Perkin Warbeck (1830), the apocalyptic novel The Last Man (1826),and her final two novels, Lodore (1835) and Falkner (1837).
Table of Contents
Frankenstein, or The Modern Prometheus
Vindication of the Rights of Women
The Last Man
Maria,The Wrongs of Woman
Mathilda
Letters written during a short residence in Sweden, Norway, and Denmark
Prosepine and Midas
The Love Letters of Mary Wollstonecraft to Gilbert Imlay
Mary
The Evil Eye
The Heir of Mondolfo
The Invisible Girl
The Mortal Immortal
Valperga
Mary Wollstonecraft's Original Stories
Lodore
Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus is a novel about a creature produced by an unorthodox scientific experiment.
The storyline emerged from a dream. Mary, Percy, Lord Byron, and John Polidori decided to have a competition to see who could write the best horror story. After thinking for weeks about what her possible storyline could be, Shelley dreamt about a scientist who created life and was horrified by what he had made. She then wrote Frankenstein.
Valperga is a historical novel which relates the adventures of the early fourteenth-century despot Castruccio Castracani, a real historical figure who became the lord of Lucca and conquered Florence. In the novel, his armies threaten the fictional fortress of Valperga, governed by Countess Euthanasia, the woman he loves. He forces her to choose between her feelings for him and political liberty. She chooses the latter and sails off to her death.
The Fortunes of Perkin Warbeck: A Romance is an 1830 historical novel about the life of Perkin Warbeck.
The Last Man is an apocalyptic science fiction novel which tells of a future world that has been ravaged by a plague.
In Lodore, the central story follows the fortunes of the wife and daughter of the title character, Lord Lodore, who is killed in a duel at the end of the first volume, leaving a trail of legal, financial, and familial obstacles for the two "heroines" to negotiate.