Romantic Outlaws: The Extraordinary Lives of Mary Wollstonecraft and Her Daughter Mary Shelley

by Charlotte Gordon

  Shelley and Mary went up to London briefly that spring to find a publisher for the almost finished Frankenstein. To their disappointment, two passed on it, and it was not until August that Lackington’s, an undistinguished house with a list of hack writers, agreed to do a small print run of five hundred copies, using the cheapest materials available. Everyone agreed that it would be best if Mary remained anonymous. However, she would keep the copyright and a third of the profit, a potentially beneficial arrangement as Lackington’s had a circulating library and a popular shop so huge that on opening day a coach and four drove around its counters as a publicity stunt.

  Once she had finished Frankenstein, Mary did not remain idle, although she was now in the last trimester of pregnancy. She had discovered that she was happiest when she had tasks to accomplish. Also, haunted by the memory of the bailiffs seizing their possessions from Bishopsgate, she desperately wanted to contribute to their income. Like her mother and father, she was endlessly worried about money. Shelley, on the other hand, was remarkably untroubled by their bills. He kept giving loans to needy friends and had spent far more than his allowance on a piano for Claire, books for their library, and trips back and forth to London.

  Accordingly, Mary began and almost finished a new writing project, all the while continuing to run the household—an extraordinary demonstration of her organizational capabilities. Her new book, A History of a Six Weeks’ Tour, was modeled on her mother’s book Letters Written During a Short Residence in Sweden, Norway, and Denmark, and was a travelogue of her trips to France and Switzerland. This was a less strenuous task than plotting out the fate of a mad scientist and his creature; all she had to do was revise her travel journal and recopy the long letters she had written to Fanny in 1816. Shelley contributed to the project as well, adding two letters he had written to Peacock while they were abroad and his poem Mont Blanc. Hunt’s friend Charles Ollier agreed to publish A History of a Six Weeks’ Tour, but before Mary could ready the manuscript for publication, she went into labor, giving birth to a little girl on September 2. Mary named the baby Clara after her stepsister, signaling a change in the relationship that had occurred over the last year. Although Mary still wanted Claire to establish an independent life for herself, and had never stopped being annoyed by Claire’s dramatic moods, the loss of Fanny had sobered Mary. Claire was the only sister she had left. In addition, Claire’s obsession with Byron, despite his obdurate refusal to respond to her letters, had lifted her out of the competition for Shelley’s attention. After Alba was born, she had turned the force of her passion onto her daughter, which had made her much easier for Mary to love. They could commiserate over the difficulties, the joys, and the worries of babies.

  Exhausted from the birth and from nursing Clara, who cried relentlessly because Mary was not producing enough milk, Mary pushed herself to finish A History. By the end of September, she had completed the editing process, and in October she transcribed a fair copy of the manuscript for Ollier. In November, A History appeared in the bookstalls. It was Mary’s first published book, preceding the publication of Frankenstein by two months.

  Although Mary had done all the work of editing, compiling, and rewriting, once again they decided that only Shelley’s name would appear on the cover. Mary did not resent this arrangement, as she knew that the book would have a better reception if the public thought a man had written it. But unfortunately, the ploy did not work. A History did not receive much notice, and few copies sold. Mary had made no money. Still, those critics who did read the book gave it good reviews, heartening the author. Years later, Mary would tell a new publisher that A History had garnered her “many complements [sic].” The reviewer at Blackwood’s was the most enthusiastic, writing “the perusal of it rather produces the same effect as a smart walk before breakfast, in company with a lively friend who hates long stories.”

  Shelley, too, had a productive summer. Since Mary managed the household, he could vanish—worry-free—for the day, notebook in hand, to write in the woods or on his boat. Hunt’s support of his work inspired Shelley to try his hand at a long poem, but this time one with the great theme of liberty. Throughout the year, there had been food shortages and bread riots; workers protested the working conditions in the northern factories. In London, the Prince Regent’s coach was attacked on its way back from Parliament. The government cracked down severely on protesters, suspending habeas corpus and instituting a gag law to silence all opponents. Was this the true spirit of England? Shelley asked. What had happened to the principles of freedom? Having written to Byron that the French Revolution was the “master theme of the epoch,” he was determined to describe both the heady optimism of the revolutionaries and their despair when the Revolution gave way to tyranny.

  By setting the poem in the Far East, Shelley managed to escape censorship, although his readers would easily have recognized the basic outline of events in France. The central characters, Laon and Cyntha, a brother and sister team, fight oppression, stir up revolution, lead workers, pronounce long philosophical speeches on behalf of liberty, and fall in love; they also supplied the title of the poem until Shelley’s publisher convinced him to drop the incest theme and change the name of the poem from Laon and Cyntha to The Revolt of Islam. Shelley was disappointed, as he had wanted “to startle the reader from the trance of ordinary life. It was my object to break through the crust of those outworn opinions on which established institutions depend.” However, even without the incest plot, the poem remained startling enough to shock nineteenth-century readers, particularly its insistence on sexual as well as political reform. Cyntha makes many Wollstonecraft-like speeches on behalf of women’s rights:

  Can man be free if woman be a slave?

  Chain one who lives, and breathes this boundless air,

  To the corruption of a closed grave!

  Can they whose mates are beasts, condemned to bear

  Scorn, heavier far than toil or anguish, dare

  To trample their oppressors?

  She also starts the revolution in her city without waiting for Laon to take the lead, which is fine by Laon as he regards Cyntha as his equal. The two assail slavery, protest religious hypocrisy and false morality, and in the end are burned at the stake.

  With its demands for change—Men should not be allowed to dominate women! The government should not exploit the individual! Freedom is a natural right!—the poem introduces many of the themes that would drive Shelley’s political work for the rest of his writing life. And while The Revolt of Islam is not one of his greatest poems, the 4,818-line ode to freedom demonstrates Shelley’s mastery of imagery, as well as a hard-won metrical sophistication.

  Shelley finished the poem on September 20, just three weeks after Clara was born, and he wrote a dedication to Mary that summed up the happiness they had enjoyed that summer while acknowledging how distant he had been while he worked:

  So now my summer task is ended, Mary,

  And I return to thee, mine own heart’s home;

  As to his queen some victor Knight of Faery,

  Earning bright spoils for her enchanted dome.

  Yet in October, the weather and their moods both took a dark turn, ending the long string of sunny days they had enjoyed in August and September. The rain battered the house and the rooms were damp. Mary worried about Wilmouse and his tendency to catch colds. Their books began to wrinkle with mold. Her newfound tranquillity with Claire was wearing thin. At ten months, Alba was thriving and no longer occupied all of Claire’s time. She was beginning to accept that Byron meant what he said and was turning back to Shelley for comfort. Shelley was happy to respond, since after Clara’s birth Mary no longer had the time or strength to be Shelley’s “queen.” Once again, Claire became Shelley’s primary confidante, and Mary was jealous. The competition between the sisters was renewed. Everything and everyone grated on Mary’s nerves, even the Hunts when they came to pay a visit. Shelley, who never had much patience with newborns, let alone impatient a
nd irritable wives, left Marlow to set up a base in London, taking Claire and Alba with him.

  Before he left, Mary urged Shelley to tell Byron to adopt Alba. She knew that without the child, Claire would need less support and would be better able to strike out on her own. Claire did not want to part with Alba, but she nursed a secret hope that when Byron met his new daughter and saw how beautiful she was, he would fall back in love with her. Shelley obliged his wife by painting a pretty domestic scene in a letter to Byron to try to persuade him to assume responsibility for Alba: “Mary has presented me with a little girl. We call it Clara. Little Alba and William, who are fast friends, and amuse themselves with talking a most unintelligible language together, are dreadfully puzzled by the stranger, whom they consider very stupid for not coming to play with them on the floor.” This was propaganda on Shelley’s part, and Byron was no fool. He could see that though Shelley clearly enjoyed Alba, now that Mary had a second child, Byron’s daughter was in the way.

  But immersed in a new life in Italy, Byron ignored Shelley. He was still interested in the younger poet, but after he arrived in Venice he had exhausted himself, bedding countless women, drinking excessive amounts of alcohol, and, in the midst of all this, writing stanza after stanza of poetry. The last thing he wanted was to be saddled with Claire and her baby.

  Mary, on the other hand, continued to worry about the growing intimacy between Shelley and Claire. She wrote Shelley many letters that fall lamenting their separation. Alone on the anniversary of Fanny’s death, she begged him to return to Marlow, but he responded by explaining that he was in financial crisis. The creditors were searching for him and it was too dangerous for him to come home. Even more worrying, he added that his tuberculosis seemed to have worsened and that Dr. Lawrence was too concerned about his health to allow him to travel—perhaps he would die before the year was out. Though Mary was concerned about her husband’s health, she could not forgive him for deserting her despite his explanations.

  Finally, in November, just as A History entered the bookstores, Shelley brought Mary to London to be with him. He was still dodging creditors, as he had not bothered to pay off his debts, but he did not allow his financial situation to distract him from his political work. He was busy writing an essay that Mary helped him revise, challenging the government’s suspension of civil liberties: “Mourn then, People of England,” he declared, “LIBERTY is dead.” Mary met with Frankenstein’s publisher to go over some emendations, and she asked her father for permission to dedicate the book to him. By now, Godwin had read the fair copy and agreed with pride; Frankenstein was a remarkable book, he felt, and would reflect well on him; his daughter should feel confident in her skills as a writer.

  The critics did not agree. Frankenstein debuted after Christmas and received immediate and angry reviews. Mary was not surprised; she knew she had tackled a controversial subject. She, or rather the anonymous author, was condemned as an atheist. The Quarterly Review called the book “a tissue of horrible and disgusting absurdity.” The Monthly Review disparaged it as “uncouth” and entirely amoral. The reviewer in La Belle Assemblée was kinder, admiring the writing and creativity but condemning the story as unrealistic. One of the few positive notices came from Sir Walter Scott, an old friend of her father’s and a hero of Mary’s. Thrilled that he liked the book, Mary dropped her disguise, writing to tell him she was the author. She had not wanted anyone to know her identity, she explained, out of “respect to those persons from whom I bear it.” But he was an exception, as there were few authors she admired more.

  Mary’s book may have disgusted the reviewers, but that did not stop people from reading it or speculating about the identity of its author. Most people assumed Shelley had written the story, not only because of the atheistic ideas, the shocking narrative, and the Godwinian philosophy, but because he had written the preface and the dedication was to his father-in-law. No one considered that the author might actually be Godwin’s daughter. A woman could never have written such a daring book.

  Although the negative critical response to Frankenstein was dispiriting, Mary still hoped that the book might bring them some money. By the end of the month, however, despite the gossip on London streets, it was clear that the novel’s sales were going to be weak. In one of the great ironies of publishing history, Frankenstein would earn no royalties for its author. Instead, Mary and Shelley set their hopes on The Revolt of Islam, which was also due out soon; they were convinced that this work, at least, would bring them some much-needed income and make Shelley famous.

  But when Revolt did come out, nothing happened. It was the worst kind of anticlimax; there was complete silence from the reviewers—the kind of horrifying silence that devastates writers, as it means no one thinks the book is worth reading. Shelley had dreamed that Revolt would be his Childe Harold. He yearned to assume the mantle of a great poet, to have his position in society redeemed. To Mary and Shelley, the silence seemed like a terrible mistake—how could people not admire Revolt? It must be because no one knew about it yet, they decided; Shelley pushed his publisher to promote the book while Hunt helped as best he could from his Hampstead office, printing selections from the poem and praising Shelley’s work as brilliant. But as the days passed, it became clear that Shelley was being snubbed, and both he and Mary felt it deeply.

  Finally, a few grudging reviews did appear, but the reviewers focused solely on Shelley’s “vile” political views and scandalous behavior: he was not a Christian; he had been kicked out of Oxford; he had broken Harriet’s heart and caused her suicide; he promoted anarchy and the death of kings. Their columns read like exposés, cheap and gossipy, designed to sell papers. For Mary and Shelley, these attacks on Shelley’s character were worrying. If Shelley became too notorious, the courts might take William and Clara away, a threat the prosecution had made during the custody trial for Ianthe and Charles. And what would happen if people found out who really wrote Frankenstein?

  For the past two years, Shelley had suspected that he and his family could no longer live in England, that here, on “their home isle,” they were misunderstood and reviled, their work rejected. Plagued by ailments, including a new intestinal complaint brought about at least in part by his odd eating habits—he lived on a lump or two of bread for days at a time—Shelley lay for hours on the drawing room couch, medicating himself with laudanum. His only delight was watching Wilmouse and Alba play. Shelley was proud of his son for sharing his treats with the little girl, toddling over and placing half in her mouth. Alba, Shelley wrote to Byron, had become “affectionate and mild.”

  After a few weeks of this malaise, at Mary’s urging he consulted Dr. Lawrence, who revised his opinion on the dangers of travel for Shelley’s health and suggested Italy as a curative. Maybe in the warm Mediterranean air Shelley would be released from his mysterious pains. Italy had the added benefit of offering safety from bailiffs and courts, cruelty and slights.

  Mary liked the idea of “pure air & burning sun,” not to mention the possibility of leaving Alba with Byron in Venice and then getting rid of Claire, since Claire would then be free to do as she wished. Claire did not protest. Not only did she cling to her hope that Byron would change his mind and they could live together as a family, she was well aware that she could not provide for Alba or protect her as Byron could. She also knew that Mary’s motives were not entirely selfish. Fanny’s suicide continued to be a cautionary example. Both sisters were fully attuned to the dangers that illegitimate daughters faced. Allegra’s famous, rich father could help her live the life of independence and dignity that had been denied Fanny.

  By the end of January, they had made the decision to go. They sold the lease on Albion House and spent February and March in a whirlwind, winding up their affairs. In the evenings they went to the opera, the theater, and supper parties with the other radicals daring enough to acknowledge them. The Hunts were so heartbroken over their friends’ departure that they could not bring themselves to leave on their
final evening together, falling asleep in the Shelleys’ rooms and only tiptoeing out at dawn.

  During these last weeks in England, when Mary was preoccupied with the pragmatic details of their decampment, Shelley fled the packing crates to spend hours with his friends in the newly established British Museum. Here he observed the marble ruins that Lord Elgin had recently brought back from Greece and Italy; to Shelley, each column, each statue of a pagan god, hinted at the riches he would soon discover in the land of antiquity. There were also some new Egyptian finds in the museum, dating from as far back as 2000 B.C.E., including a seven-ton statue of Pharaoh Ramses II carved from a single block of blue and tan granite. Ramses’ eyes appeared to look down at visitors, giving one a strange feeling of being watched. Shelley was so moved by the statue, so grand that Napoleon had once lusted after it, that he proposed to his friend Horace Smith, a financier who would represent the Shelleys’ affairs once they were out of the country, that they each write a poem in its honor. Smith agreed, composing some entirely forgettable lines. But Shelley, fueled by anger at his neglect by the literary establishment, his disillusionment with the repressive English government, and his rancor at how he had been treated by the world in general, composed Ozymandias—the most famous sonnet he ever wrote, and among the most evocative:

  I met a traveller from an antique land

  Who said: “Two vast and trunkless legs of stone

  Stand in the desert. Near them, on the sand,

  Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown,

  And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,

  Tell that its sculptor well those passions read

  Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,