Book Description
This book was converted from its physical edition to the digital format by a community of volunteers. You may find it for free on the web. Purchase of the Kindle edition includes wireless delivery. ... Read more

Book Description
This book was converted from its physical edition to the digital format by a community of volunteers. You may find it for free on the web. Purchase of the Kindle edition includes wireless delivery.Download Description
Shelley possessed two remarkable qualities of intellect--a brilliant imagination, and a logical exactness of reason. His inclinations led him (he fancied) almost alike to poetry and metaphysical discussions. I say 'he fancied,' because I believe the former to have been paramount, and that it would have gained the mastery even had he struggled against it. ... Read more

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This book was converted from its physical edition to the digital format by a community of volunteers. You may find it for free on the web. Purchase of the Kindle edition includes wireless delivery.Download Description
Pros. Ino, you knew erewhile a River-God, Who loved you well and did you oft entice To his transparent waves and flower-strewn banks. He loved high poesy and wove sweet sounds, And would sing to you as you sat reclined . ... Read more

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This book was converted from its physical edition to the digital format by a community of volunteers. You may find it for free on the web. Purchase of the Kindle edition includes wireless delivery.Download Description
At another time we were haunted for several days by an apparition, to which our people gave the appellation of the Black Spectre. We never saw it except at evening, when his coal black steed, his mourning dress, and plume of black feathers, had a majestic and awe-striking appearance; his face, one said, who had seen it for a moment, was ashy pale; he had lingered far behind the rest of his troop, and suddenly at a turn in the road, saw the Black Spectre coming towards him. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (10)

Let His Death Crown His Life!
I am in ethereal love with Mary Shelley. Why is her literary importance and fancy not uplifted more than it is? I grimace whenever I go to a bookstore and glance each time at the Mary Shelley section to find only Frakenstein. She has other great books probably not many people know about. Such is the case in The Last Man. I thought Frankenstein was about as sad as one could allow a character to feel but after reading The Last Man Mary out does herself by really putting poor Verney in a pickle. This story really tugged at me hard and actually made me feel for the characters in a way so few books or movies ever have. If you know about Mary Shelley and have read Frankenstein or anything else by this, I feel, greatest author to have ever put word to paper, then you MUST read this beautiful accounting of "the last year of the world". It astonished me to find out that the book was out of print from 1833 to 1965. Wow! I failed to compare the story to such contemporary biological warfare or AIDS for that matter and took the story's meaning for what Shelley may have wanted to get across during her time that had neither. I believe she wants to almost persuade us of a deeper level of human condition and compassion by taking us as low as we can and then allowing us to constantly strive upward from that awful place she leaves Verney. Please, read more of Mary Shelley.

Mary Shelley Fantastic!
If you are a fan of the book Frankenstein, then you will
definetely enjoy this book.Mary Shelley is obviously
a gifted writer who is inciteful on human interplay.
The story is not so acurate when it describes the 21st
century, but that is not what the story concentrates on.
It is similar to Frankenstein about doomed characters
in a Greek tragedy.If your a fan of Mary then you must
buy this book.

Death and disease level all men
This novel is a combination of a `roman à clefs' and science fiction, with gothic and autobiographic elements.
In her vision of the end of the 21st century, Mary Shelley sees the Greek occupying Istanbul and England as a republic with three political parties (royalists, democrats and aristocrats). The leader of the democrats deserts his responsibilities through fear of the plague, while the intention of the head of the aristocrats (a highly idealized portrait of P.B. Shelley) is `to diminish the power of the aristocracy to effect a greater equalization of wealth and privilege and to introduce a perfect system of republican government.'
Byron (Lord Raymond) is not in the same league: `Power was the aim of all his endeavors. The selected passion was ambition.'

Her vision of mankind is pessimistic: `There was but one good and one evil in the world - life and death.'
For life, `The choice is with us; let us will it and our habitation becomes a paradise.'
But, `What is there in our nature that is for ever urging us on towards pain and misery? We are not formed for enjoyment; disappointment is the never-failing pilot of our life's bark, and ruthlessly carries us to the shoals.'
`It is a strange fact, but incontestable, that the philanthropist, who ardent in his desire to do good, who disdains other argument than truth, has less influence over men's mind than he who refuses not to adopt any means, nor diffuse any falsehood for the advancement of his cause.'

Man doesn't control his destiny and the whole of mankind is wiped out by the plague. But, even on the verge of total destruction, false prophets preach intolerance with their `pernicious doctrines of election and special grace'.

This book is brilliantly written: `He was no longer bent to the ground, like an over-nursed flower of spring that, shooting up beyond its strength, is weighed down even by its own coronal of blossoms.'

It has a few minus points: slow progression, too idealized main characters and a rather too simplistic cause of the whole destruction of mankind.
But, it remains a real discovery and a very worth-while read, with an excellent introduction by Pamela Bickley.

Many novels have the plague as subject. I recommend highly `Bassompierre' by Hugo von Hofmannsthal.

The Last Man by MaryShelley (1797-1851)
The book chronicles a great global plague which annihilates the
world except for one man who describes the world's demise.
The work was first published in 1826. It was out-of-print from
1833 through 1965 and has been widely read thereafter. Shelley's
"Last Man" has been resurrected due to the tremendous interest
in potential plagues like bird disease, global warming, continental earth movements, super hurricanes and out-of-control comets randomly threatening the earth of the future on a periodic basis.

Even Nostradamos talked about the world's end in the year 3797.
The volume is written in the English literature of the 1800s.
The language is superior. In spots, the vocabulary is of the
highest order. Here is a sample:

" She dwelt in a cottage whose trim grass-plat sloped down to
the waters of the lake of Ulswater; a beech wood stretched up the hill behind, and a purling brook gently falling from the
acclivity ran through poplar-shaded banks into the lake. "

Another unforgetable passage reminds us of Shelley's poetic
nature interwoven into the overall story. Details follow:

"The golden splendour arose, and weary nature awoke to suffer
yet another day of heat and thirsty decay. No flowers lifted up
their dew laden cups to meet the dawn; the dry grass had
withered on the plains; the burning fields of air were vacant of
birds; the cicale alone, children of the sun, began their shrill
and deafening song among the cypresses and olives. "

Just prior to the year 2100, Shelley paves the way for the
chaos in the making. A sample paragraph describes the
apprehension in the wind:

" This was not universal. Among better natures, anguish and
dread, the fear of eternal separation, and the awful wonder
produced by unprecedented calamity, drew closer to the ties of
kindred and friendship. Philosophers opposed their principles, as
barriers to the inundation of profligacy or despair , and
the only ramparts to protect the invaded territory of human
life; the religious, hoping now for their reward, clung fast
to their creeds, as the rafts and planks which over the tempest-
vexed sea of suffering, would bear them in safety to the harbour
of the Unknown Continent. "

Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley published a number of memorable
works around the time of "The Last Man". Her other works were:
- Perkin Warbeck in 1830--the author's fourth novel
- Lodore is published in 1835.
- Faulker is published in 1837

On February 1, 1851,Mary Shelley died.

"The Last Man," the best of Mary Shelley's "other" works
Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin Shelley published "The Last Man" in 1826, eight years after her classic "Frankenstein" and four years after her husband Percy Bysshe Shelley died.Of all of her other novels, "The Last Man" is clearly the one that is of more than passing interest.In her Journal in May of 1824 Shelley wrote: "The last man!Yes, I may well describe that solitary being's feelings, feeling myself as the last relic of a beloved race, my companions extinct before me."The result was one of the first novels to tell a story in which the human race is destroyed by pestilence, which we have seen in novels from Richard Matheson's "I Am Legend" and Stephen King's "The Stand," and films such as the recent "28 Days Later..." However, "The Last Man" is also an early example of a dystopian novel set in the 21st century when England is a republic being governed by a ruling elite.Adrian, Earl of Windsor (and a representation of Shelley's late husband) introduces the narrator of the tale, Lionel Verney, who is the required outsider to describe and comment upon the world of the future.

Shelley's vision of the future is essentially a reaction against Romanticism and the failure of the movement to solve the problems of the world with art and imagination.This would stand in contrast to earlier English utopian works such as Francis Bacon's "The New Atlantis," which reflected the Age of Reason's belief that science would solve any and all problems.Shelley begins the story as a romance, with Lord Raymond (presumed to be modeled on Lord Byron) winning the hand of the lovely Perdita and being elected Protector.In contrast to the dire predictions of Thomas Malthus regarding unchecked population growth resulting in mass starvation, an ideal world seems to have been created.But then the plague breaks out in Constantinople and starts spreading.This plague is grounded more in fantasy than science, with Shelley clearly relying more on Boccaccio and Defoe, for her pandemic, which is not contagious (an interesting plot choice to be sure).

The point of the plague is that it allows Shelley to show the best and the worst of human nature.When the demagogue Ryland abdicates being Lord Protector, the altruistic Adrian takes his place and makes an appeal for brotherhood, even as anarchy runs rampant in the streets and eventually the main characters are forced to flee England, which has strong parallels to the expulsion from Eden.This sets up the idea at the end of the novel that the last survivors might be able to establish an earthly paradise and rebuild the human race after the plague has disappeared.I was rather surprised that Shelley kills off her female characters because I had expectations that this would be more of a feminist work.Of course, this is because I remember who her mother was, but "The Last Man" is clearly concerned more with her late husband.

"The Last Man" was probably Mary Shelley's least successful work during her lifetime, but today, which the interest in science fiction, as well as the real world threats of biological warfare and other weapons of mass destruction, this idea of how the world ends is quite pertinent.This is clearly her most important work after "Frankenstein," although obviously we are talking about a significant gap. ... Read more

Book Description

The letters of Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley reveal a remarkable woman living in a remarkable age. They date from October 1814--shortly after her elopement with Percy Bysshe Shelley--through September 1850, five months before her death. Her correspondents' names are familiar--Shelley himself, Byron, Bulwer-Lytton, Disraeli, General Lafayette, Sir Walter Scott--and the letters abound with anecdotes about such eminent figures as her parents (William Godwin and Mary Wollstonecraft), Keats, Washington Irving, and Charles and Mary Lamb.

Publication of the widely acclaimed, three-volume edition of Mary Shelley's letters was completed in 1988, containing all 1,276 of her known extant letters. Now Betty T. Bennett has selected 230 of those letters to give an overview of Mary Shelley's life as she was seeing it, living it, and recording it. Bennett also includes an introductory essay that sketches a portrait of Mary Shelley, her world, and her place in the history of literature and letters.

Customer Reviews (1)

In Depth Study of a Classic Author
This book provides a fascinating look into the life of Mary Wollstonecraft Shelly.By reading actual letters written by Mary, to various important people in her life, you gain access to what her life outside the realm of literary circles was like.The author of this book adds interesting conjecture as to what the content of the letters means when clarity is needed or when certain facts aren't available.If you are interested in Mary's life & are looking for more than just a biography, "Selected Letters of" has much to offer.One star demerit for too little information from the time of her visit to Lord Byron at Lake Geneva in the Summer of 1816.Maybe there are fewer letters available from that time.But that's the time frame I am most interested in. ... Read more

Book Description

The definitive account of Mary Shelley's life from her own pen is now available in a single softcover volume. Here we see even more vividly than in her letters her sympathetic identification with nature and her struggles with--and ultimate surrender to--the lifelong depression that followed her husband's death. Supplementing the text are extensive annotations, a chronology, a thorough index, maps of the Shelleys' travels, portraits of acquaintances, appendices giving biographical accounts of the members of Mary Shelley's social circles in Pisa and London, the Shelleys' reading lists, and a bibliography.

Book Description

Customer Reviews (2)

"An Uncovered Classic"
Ever since I read Frankenstein by Mary Shelley, I have taken a deep interest in Shelley's life. When searching for books of her's that had supernatural/gothic tendencies like Frankenstein, I found very little aside from The Last Man. When finding Transformation, I was overcome with joy, having discovered a missing work by Shelley that I would never have found any other way.

Transformation is a slim, yet fascinating volume containing short stories that Shelley wrote during the middle of her career. Because of the intresting plots, I was able to finish it in a day. For anybody that is looking for some reading to follow up on after Frankenstein, this is the one.

The book itself contains three stories, but despite the cover price, you won't be disappointed. The first story is "Transformation", in which a desperate and reckless young man makes a bargin with a dwarven-like creature. In exchange for riches, the dwarven creature would would be able to use the man's body as his own for three days. This story is excellent, and by far the best out of the collection.

The second story is "The Mortal Immortal", about a man who was a student of the alchemist Cornelius Agrippa. After drinking a chemical behind his master's back, the man becomes immortal, thus outliving everyone he knew.

The third story is "The Evil Eye". Unlike the others, this one is not supernatural, but it is more or less an adventure/suspense story about an Albanian bandit and his dealings with an old friend of his.

I would divulge more, but I would rather that you discover the details for yourself. These stories are rarely in print and have been neglected from the standard "literary cannon", despite the fact that these tales are very good. Just check it out and you will be pleased.

Three stories that fascinated me
These three stories illustrate what a great writer Mary Shelley was. For me they did seem to have less drive and purpose than 'Frankenstein' or 'Matilda' but the writing is vivid and atmospheric. They are, like all of Shelley's writing (that I have so far read), about loss and separation. Like Philip K Dick who apparently blamed himself for the death of his twin sister when he was just two days old, Mary blamed herself for the death of her mother days after she was born. That people can carry such unfair burdens that they place upon themselves is tragic, that they can rise above them to produce great works of art that we can all benefit from is miraculous for me.

Other recommendations:
'Matilda' by Mary Shelley
'Caleb Williams' By William Godwin (Mary's father)
any of the fantasy writings by E T A Hoffmann ... Read more

Amazon.com
She was the daughter of pioneering feminist Mary Wollstonecraft and radical philosopher William Godwin, both reviled for their unconventional views. She ran away with poet Percy Bysshe Shelley when she was 16 and wrote Frankenstein when she was 19. Three of her four children died in infancy; her husband drowned before she turned 25. Yet Mary Shelley (1797-1851) persevered to write other novels (none so famous as her first), to nurture her husband's literary status (decidedly shaky at the time of his death), and to support her son and acquire a devoted daughter-in-law who was partly responsible for her rather dull posthumous reputation as the quintessential devoted widow. British novelist and biographer Miranda Seymour paints a more nuanced portrait of Mary as a sharply intelligent, sometimes cantankerous woman who did not always graciously suffer Percy's blithe impetuousness and principled infidelities (possibly including one with her stepsister). Guilt at being the innocent cause of her mother's death may have played a part in the genesis of Frankenstein, Seymour acknowledges, but so did Mary's views on slavery, the landscape of Scotland, and the tales she heard there as a teenager of disastrous Arctic expeditions. The story of how Frankenstein came to be written while the Shelleys were vacationing in Switzerland with Byron is well known, but Seymour retells it well. Her strong account of how Mary's character was formed in conflict, first with an unloved stepmother and then with a difficult husband, makes the subsequent 30 years of her life more understandable and almost as interesting as the first quarter century. Drawing on feminist scholarship of the last 30 years but written for the general public, Seymour's lucid biography captures the whole woman, not just the author of Frankenstein or the grieving widow of Percy Shelley. --Wendy Smith Book Description
Gracefully sweeping through the dramatic life of the woman behind history's most legendary monster, Miranda Seymour unbuttons a world of brilliant literary figures in Mary Shelley and re-creates the imaginative time in which Frankenstein was born. The itinerant life of Mary Shelley began when she escaped the continent at age sixteen with her husband, the poet Percy Bysshe Shelley, her reputation in ruins. With Mary's stepsister Claire Clairmont in tow, they traveled from England to Switzerland to stifling Italy in the summer. In 1816 they rented a villa near Lord Byron's on Lake Geneva where, in a famous night of eerie thunderstorms, they told ghost stories and tales of horror. From that night emerged the idea of Frankenstein, a monster who has haunted imaginations for nearly two hundred years. His creator was an eighteen-year-old girl. But tragedy shadowed her; she came to lose three of her four children in infancy and when she was twenty-four, Shelley drowned off the coast of Italy. After his death she moved back to England with her only remaining child, Percy. Though Frankenstein later became a success, the world she returned to was bleak and impoverished, and she was reduced to hack writing to make ends meet. The Mary we meet here, brilliantly brought to life by Seymour from previously unexplored sources, is flawed, brave, generous, and impetuous. As Jackie Wullschlager of The Financial Times (London) said, "Mary Shelley is the most dazzling biography of a female writer to have come my way for a decade." ... Read more

Customer Reviews (7)

A radical generation
After reading _Vindication_, the recent biography of Mary Wollstonecraft, the flow of the greater tale naturally leads to the lives of Godwin, his/her daughter and Shelley, and this account of the life of Wollstonecraft's daughter makes excellent continued reading, in the process giving a snapshot of the extraordinary dual careers of the Romantic poet and authoress of Frankenstein. Subjects now seen through the lenses of literary discourse also make a good study of the radical generation suffering the Restoration and its reactionary politics. Indeed the book is a study in class, and associated struggles, especially Shelley's voluntary abandonment of his aristocratic background. The end of Mary Shelley's life is one of the awful constrictions placed on her by Shelley's dreadful family after his death, and the seeming asphyxiation of her earlier radicalism. The magic moment of the birth of Frankenstein is that of the genre of prophecy rightly conceived, although we tend to project our later concerns (e.g. genetic enginering) on what was quite a different psychology and symbolism at work in the genesis of the extraordinary myth.

A thorough, well-researched biography
I disagree with my fellow Michigan man who trashes the subject and its author by mentioning "feminist" as if it is a four-letter word.
Those who didn't find this book difficult to follow will discover a well-researched, well-written biography.

Biographies of romantic-era writers can be very difficult, especially if the writer happens to be a woman. If Victorian-era leaders and historians didn't attempt to wipe out the writer's existence altogether, they at least attempted to wipe out parts of them that were not representative of Victorian, ie ultra-conservative, values.
Little is known about the "mother" of science fiction beyond the most outrageous and scandalous aspects of her life, and even those facts were concealed by Mary Shelley's well-meaning family members for more than 100 years.
For what she's been given, Seymour does an excellent job revealing the history and personality behind this writer and if that's considered feminist, I believe that's complimentary.

Difficult to follow
The subject was interesting to me but the author is not easy to read.Her sentence structure is often convoluted, I found myself having to reread many sentences to grasp the meaning.She also refers to people,dates and places in such a way that it is difficult to keep track of what is going on.Finally, her perspective is very sympathetic to MS, its obvious the author is a feminist.

Extremely boring presentation of an interesting life...
This book is very thick and very difficult to read.I do not reccomend this biography because of how confusing it is to read.There are too many dates thrown in here and there and not enough simple facts to keep the reader focused.I have read many biographies but this one must surely rank as the most perplexing!Try another biography of this interesting woman.

A fan
Really enjoyed the book.Agree entirely with Mr Sherwood smith.The research was impressive and one has a sense of the biography being a real labour of love.Miranda Seymour has unearthed a lot of new information and as a longtime fan of Mary Shelley, I was surprised to find out how little I actually knew about her life and motivations.I can't recommend it enough. ... Read more

Book Description
Well-known scholars review Mary Shelley's work in several contexts (literary history, aesthetic and literary culture, the legacies of her parents) and also analyze her most famous work-- Frankenstein.The contributors also examine Shelley as a biographer, cultural critic, and travel writer.The text is supplemented by a chronology, guide to further reading and select filmography.Download Description
Known from her day to ours as 'the Author of Frankenstein', Mary Shelleyindeed created one of the central myths of modernity. But she went on to survive all manner of upheaval - personal, political, and professional - and to produce an oeuvre of bracing intelligence and wide cultural sweep. The Cambridge Companion to Mary Shelley helps readers to assess for themselves her remarkable body of work. In clear, accessible essays, a distinguished group of scholars place Shelley's works in several historical and aesthetic contexts: literary history, the legacies of her parents William Godwin and Mary Wollstonecraft, and of course the life and afterlife, in cinema, robotics and hypertext, of Frankenstein. Other topics covered include Mary Shelley as a biographer and cultural critic, as the first editor of Percy Shelley's works, and as travel writer. This invaluable volume is complemented by a chronology, a guide to further reading and a select filmography. ... Read more

Book Description
One of the most terrifying and sublime novels of the Romantic period, Frankenstein has remained an indelible creation, appearing in everything from B-movies to erotica.This sourcebook examines Mary Shelley's novel within its literary and cultural contexts, exploring the contexts from which Frankenstein emerged, the early reception of the novel, adaptation and performance of the work and recent criticism on it.The text also includes carefully annotated key passages from the novel and concludes with a list of recommended editions and further reading, to allow readers to pursue the areas of study that intrigue them. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Great Shelley Resource for Students and Faculty
This is a great find. I have used this in my classes and think it is an excellent teaching and learning tool. The book is logically presented and ordered in a way that all the information is readily accessible, and the whole concept is intriguing. And finally, it is a solid guide to responsible Shelley scholars and resources. ... Read more

Book Description
Although Frankenstein is now widely taught in classes on Romanticism, little attention has been paid to the considerable corpus of Mary Shelley's other works. Indeed the excitement of the last decade at feminist approaches to Frankenstein has ironically obscured the persona of its author. This collection of essays, written by a preeminent group of Romantic scholars, sketches a portrait of the "other Mary Shelley": the writer and intellectual who recognized the turbulent interplay among issues of family, gender, and society, and whose writings resonate strongly in the setting of contemporary politics, culture, and feminism. By analyzing a previously neglected body of novels, novellas, reviews, travel writing, essays, letters, biographies, and tales, and by emphasizing Mary Shelley's shrewd assessment of Romanticism, the essays in this volume offer a ground-breaking evaluation of one of the foremost cultural critics of the nineteenth century. ... Read more

Book Description

"Recognition of Mary Shelley's systemic dual focus on public and domestic power as the means to interrogate traditional norms and propose alternatives materially alters parochial perceptions of her objectives and her achievements. Her novels, outside of Frankenstein, and recently, The Last Man, have been dismissed as simple, mutual dissociated "romances" or experiments in genre solely to intersect with a market niche; they are neither. Rather, they and all of Mary Shelley's major works voice a cosmopolitan, socio-political reformist ideology that evolved as their author's acute awareness of world events enabled her to calibrate her literary voice to deal with unfolding rather than past societal issues. Her multidisciplinary fusion of literature, political philosophy, and history calls for a commensurate multidisciplinary reading in order to understand the complexities of both the author and her works." -- Betty T. Bennett

In this book, Betty T. Bennett offers an extensively expanded version of the introduction she wrote for Pickering and Chatto's eight volume set, The Novels and Selected Works of Mary Shelley. Along with her insightful retelling of Mary Shelley's eventful life story, Bennett gives us a fresh reading of Frankenstein in the context of its author's full career. She also discusses a variety of Mary Shelley's lesser known works, including Matilda, Valperga, The Last Man, Perkin Warbeck, Lodore, Falkner, and her travel books. The result is a compelling portrait of Mary Shelley as she saw herself -- an inventive, irreverent writer whose desire for political and social reform was at the heart of her literary expression for three decades.