Traveling and Writing with Mary Shelley

Abstract

My work on Mary Shelley’s travels in Italy expands the current focus on her as merely the author of Frankenstein. Mary Shelley wrote two travel narratives, several novels, biographies, poems, and short stories during her life yet she is mostly known for her biographical notes on Percy Bysshe Shelley’s poetry, her late husband, and Frankenstein, which some scholars have considered highly influenced and edited by P.B. Shelley. Modern scholarship focuses primarily on her contribution to the Romantic era and her literary parentage. During my research in London and subsequent travels throughout Italy, I discovered Mary Shelley’s desire to become famous on her own rather than because of her husband’s achievements. Her journal entries and letters to friends, as well as her travel narrative, show her desire to free herself from her dreary existence in England and become someone notable in her beloved Italy. My research unmasks the typical portrayal of Mary Shelley, unveiling her life-long affection and wish to return to her Italy, where she lost her husband and children, but also where she found herself.