2.  Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin was born on August 30, 1797 in London, England.  She was the daughter of philosopher and writer William Godwin and feminist Mary Wollstonecraft. Her mother died shortly after her birth  She did not have a formal education, but made use of her father’s extensive library.

3.  She also had the opportunity to meet many famous writer friends of her father like Samuel Taylor Coleridge and William Wordsworth.  In 1814 she started a relationship with Percy Bysshe Shelley. He was a student of her father’s but soon put all his attention towards Mary. ( She was 17 years old)

4.  The bad thing about Percy was that he was already married!  But, he wanted to be with Mary so bad that he ran off with her to England that same year.  Mary and Percy travelled around Europe where they struggled financially.  In 1815 they lost their first child, a baby girl who only survived a few days (She was 18)

5.  Shortly after the death of their first baby, Shelley recorded a dream that may or may not have had an influence on Frankenstein: "Dream that my little baby came to life again-- that it had only been cold & that we rubbed it before the fire & it lived."

6.  The next summer Mary and Percy travelled to Switzerland with Mary’s stepsister Jane, Lord Byron, and John Polidori.  One rainy day, they kept themselves busy by reading a book of ghost stories.  Lord Byron then suggested they all try to write their own horror stories.  That is how Frankenstein began.

7.  Later that year Mary’s half sister committed suicide. Not long after that Percy’s wife committed suicide as well.  Percy and Mary finally married in December of 1816. (She was 19)  In 1818 Frankenstein was published under an anonymous author and was a success.

8.  While Mary was devoted to her husband their lives were not easy. Their marriage was riddled with adultery and heartache, including the death of two more children.  Only one son lived to adulthood.  Her life was rocked by another tragedy when her husband drowned in 1822 while he was sailing with a friend. She was a widow at 24.

9.  Mary Shelley worked hard to support herself and her son.  She wrote more novels and also promoted her late husband’s work.  Mary Shelley died of brain cancer on February 1, 1851, at the age of 53.

10.  http://www.biography.com/people/mary- shelley-9481497?page=2 http://www.biography.com/people/mary- shelley-9481497?page=2  http://people.brandeis.edu/~teuber/shelleybi o.html http://people.brandeis.edu/~teuber/shelleybi o.html