Selected Letters of Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley

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.

Publisher: The Johns Hopkins University Press
Date Published: 1995
Book Condition: Very good softcover with minor surface, edge wear and corner bumping to covers. Some tan spotting to page edges. Previous owner’s name on the half-title page. Otherwise, an unmarked copy internally.