This book describes the connections and relationships between Percy Bysshe Shelley and Mary Shelley, Thomas Paine, Mary Wollstonecraft and William Godwin. In their day they were all celebrated writers, but today it is Godwin who is probably the least known. He was the husband of Wollstonecraft and the father of Mary Shelley. Mary Shelley's novel "Frankenstein" is dedicated to Godwin.
"[...]memory chiefly because he moved Burke to declamatory rage. His Reflections on the French Revolution was an answer to the Old Jewry sermon, which, eloquent itself, was to beget much eloquence in others. For four years the mighty debate went on, and it became as the disputants conversed across the echoes of the Terror, rather a dialogue between the past and the future, than a discussion between human voices. Burke answered Dr. Price, and to Burke in turn replied Tom Paine with the brilliant, confident, hard-hitting logic of a pamphlet (The Rights[...]".
This collection of essays expands critical consideration of Mary Shelley’s placement within the age we call “Romantic,” wherein her texts converse with those of her family, her circle, and her contemporaries. Several essays address particularly how her texts interact with those of her husband Percy Bysshe Shelley, revealing new depth and breadth to their literary partnership. Others investigate interdisciplinary perspectives, such as her pieces in The Liberal or the ways in which the figure of Scheherezade haunts her works, while several essays also consider Mary Shelley’s textual relationships with contemporaries such as Thomas Moore and John Polidori. Still others tackle topics such as geopolitical relationships and the growth of opera as an art form, considering Mary Shelley’s commentary upon such contemporary issues, while William Godwin’s textual relationship with his daughter is further investigated. This collection suggests Mary Shelley’s texts merit further investigation not only for what they reveal about their author and her oeuvre, but for the ways in which they illuminate our understanding of the contexts in which they were composed.
