Mary Shelley

Reviews

‘The most dazzling biography of a female writer to have come my way for a decade… Here, for the first time, Shelley steps off the page as a living, thinking, suffering woman, fraught and caught in the web of her own intelligence.’ ‘To be savoured for its vivid and sympathetic recreation of the tragic life and brilliant times of the gifted Mary Shelley.’ ‘Brilliant and enthralling, this portrait illuminates Mary’s life in many unexpected ways.’ ‘A wonderfully vivid, human and learned portrait of the woman who created Frankenstein, married Shelley, and, amazingly, survived.’ 'Mary Shelley, Miranda Seymour’s affectionate and well-written biography, concisely sketches the background of scientific inquiry that influenced Shelley’s early intellectual development… Seymour keenly brings out how fraught Mary Shelley’s own life was with tragedies of childbirth and infant mortality… In 1818, the Shelleys moved to Italy…where Byron now was. They formed a tense and inbred circle, sharply evoked by Seymour: the women eyeing each other jealously, each serially or simultaneously in love with Shelley or Byron or both… Miranda Seymour is a novelist as well as an experienced biographer… She has vivid narrative gifts and a perceptive understanding of the main personalities.' 'Splendid biography.' 'Miranda Seymour’s lucid biography arrives as the general reader’s guide to Mary Shelley’s ascent to academic cult status… Seymour is persuasive.' '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 Mary we meet here, brilliantly brought to life by Seymour from previously unexplored sources, is flawed, brave, generous, and impetuous.' 'I envy any reader of this excellent biography who happens not to be very familiar with the lives of Shelley and the girl who eloped with him when she was sixteen.' 'The most thorough account of Shelley’s life…eminently readable.' 'A harrowing life, wonderfully retold.' 'Seymour is adept at capturing the cultural climate and social context of the early nineteenth century in the major English and Italian settings of Shelley’s life story. She has done hard and valuable work in finely combining the correspondence of the many players in this story, and reconstructing the likeliest version of events---no mean feat with a circle, such as Shelley’s, that was rife with contention, backbiting and self-promotion.' 'One of the finest and most significant biographies of recent years.' 'Seymour’s book is a timeless representation of a woman who endured skewed public perceptions about herself and her loved ones.' 'Mary’s tragic life story makes for a biography as intriguing as her masterpiece.' 'Seymour’s scrupulous, almost anxiously tender portrait peels away the myths like layers of tissue paper shrouding a lost relic. This is a fine biography that gives us the dense background to Mary Shelley’s work while losing none of the searing glamour and pain of her sad, extraordinary life.' Expand reviews