10 Shocking Facts About Mary Shelley | The Scandalous True Story of the Author of Frankenstein

I had no idea how much drama and scandal took place in the life of Mary Shelley! I hope you'll enjoy the journey with me in this author bio series :) NOTE: These videos are designed to be listened to as you're getting ready in the morning, making dinner, etc. I know they are LONNNGGG lol but there is too much drama to cut it short!

Let me know if you have questions about Mary Shelley, there is so much more there wasn't time to include! And I'd love to discuss it with you!

Watch Next:
10 Facts About Louisa May Alcott, Author of Little Women
10 Facts About Ray Bradbury, Author of Fahrenheit 451

Research References:
Mary Shelley: A Biography by Martin Garrett
Harriet' Shelley's Note:
...
Find me on Instagram to see what I'm reading next:
Sometimes I say funny things on Twitter:

[poemsbycharleslawson]

I did a research on Mary Shelly back in 1978 in high school. I was so amazed at what I found out. She would at times, spend hours at her mom's gravesite during those turbulent times with her step mom. I could see how she developed the story of Frankenstein through her own life experience. Lot of people thought there was a cures but on them after the book Frankenstein.

[pumpkinpatch]

Missed fact: Mary kept Percy’s heart after he died.

[miniprepper]

You did a good job with this. Free love sounds great, but it's never really free- somebody ends up paying for it, one way or another. It's very telling that Mary Shelley never remarried after Percy died at 29... she was just in her mid twenties having suffered miscarriages, child deaths and suicides on both sides of the family. She had grown up fast and was done, done, done. After one miscarriage in Italy, Percy had her in a tub of ice for hours so she wouldn't bleed out. Jane outlived them all but Mary lived a long time compared to Percy and his buddies.

[J-th]

I have been studying Mary Shelley since at least 1968, I am glad this video was not my first introduction to her biography and significance.

[johngray]

Thanks for sharing. I’m so lucky to have the rarest Frankenstein of them all: The 1821 second overall edition published in Paris and the first edition to attribute Mary Shelley as the author which was the only such edition to do so during the lifetime of Percy Shelley who was said to be extremely proud of the 1821 French translation which plays heavily on supernatural elements and dark magic. Only six surviving copies are known to exist with the American copy held by the Beinecke library at Yale. (Also now held in Mary Shelley’s former home town of Dundee ❤️🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿)

[Sayre]

I have just stumbled on your channel, but I don't know that I'll return. While I can certainly see that you're an intelligent person, the opinionated reading without context and the trivializing of both Mary Shelley and "this Percy guy." The whole video discounts beliefs and principles. It teeters on the shallow more often than not. I wish you well and wish you a deeper reading on your subjects in the future.

[Lisa]

Very good video! I’m not shocked by all the 18th century depression, out of wedlock sex, adultery, drunkenness and so forth. People are people no matter the societal rules.

[lauraking]

Just an incredible dive into her life. Appreciate all the work that went into this. Nailed it!

[cyanidefire]

Thank you so much for making this video - it must have been taken so much I'm doing an English Literature A-Level in England currently and I took the course (mainly) for the sections we're doing on Romanticism. I find it fascinating, and it's wonderful to see the amount of love that goes into learning more about the people and culture of the period. Will be watching the rest of this in my frees!! :)

[jaredvaughan]

Her life was hard. Her mom died after childbirth. Her stepmother was difficult for everyone around her.

[StarlightReader]

These "10 facts about..." series you do is so interesting! More please! 🙆‍♀️

[brandigray]

Man, this was heavy. Frankenstein is one of my all time favs and I had no idea...

[brucestunkard]

You did a fantastic job in summarizing MWS from a complicated massive amount of material with passion and pathos. And I did appreciate your judgements. I concur with your belief that MWS was Frankenstein having just completed its reading. Thank you for excellent work.

[methylidyneradical]

thank you!!! much needed. you and mary have impacted me today. a lesson learned just in time!

[ttowntrekker]

Love this series! So glad I found your channel. Hopefully you aren't finished with YouTube!

[Jaydodd]

I just discovered your You tube series and really like it! This is 2023 and I am not sure you are still broadcasting but I hope so! Yes, I did know quite a bit about Mary Shelley, especially the time with Shelley, Byron and Jane...I had read that Frankenstein came from a bet that they all had one time when together. I did not know about her tragedies with pregnancies and what became of her after Shelley's death so thank you for that info.

[abbeys-road]

Thank you for this video. Educational, while conversational and fun. Just subscribed! Not sure how i didn't know about your channel until now. LOVE IT!

[matthewgoodman]

You are amazing. Thank you for making thus to us huge Mary WS fans. Bravo. I sat down immediately and watched. We celebrate her birthday every year.

[karenbrokken]

Percey Shelly was vegan and wrote about the condition and sentience of animals. So I am a fan. The poetry is nice as well.

[luisgonzalez]

Hour long video about Mary Shelly, studying can wait.