MARY SHELLEY (1797-1851) experienced the kind of childhood that sounds like a dark fairy tale. Her mother, an early feminist, died giving birth to her; she was brought up by a remote father (the philosopher William Godwin) and a stepmother who hated her. Her step-sister was a depressive, who would later commit suicide; and there were also a step-brother and a half-brother in the family. The young Mary escaped from her surroundings into reading, and would often read by the side of her mother's tomb. In 1813, she met Percy Bysshe Shelley. He was only twenty-one years old, but was already married-and unhappy in his marriage. And it was already clear that he was destined to be one of the geniuses of English poetry. Despite Mary's age, the two fell in love and eloped in 1816. Because of this, her father disowned her. The young couple decided to live abroad, and settled in Italy. It was Byron who suggested, in 1817, that they each write a horror story of some kind. The result, in Mary's case, was Frankenstein. A young girl of twenty wrote the book whose name has become synonymous with horror. Tragedy followed them: of their four children, only one lived very long. Then in 1822, aged just thirty, Percy Shelley was drowned. Mary's life was effectively over: even though she lived for another thirty years, her flame never again burned as brightly as it had in the company of her brilliant husband and their friends such as the poet Lord Byron; and although she wrote more, the single book which is her lasting legacy belonged to the time in Italy.
