Mary Shelley
Born: 08-29-1797
Mary Shelley, born in 1797, was an English novelist best known for her groundbreaking work "Frankenstein," published in 1818. Daughter of political philosopher William Godwin and feminist writer Mary Wollstonecraft, Shelley was immersed in a literary environment from an early age. Her novel, a pioneering piece of science fiction, explores themes of creation and responsibility. Shelley's influence extends beyond her writing, impacting literature, ethics, and science fiction narratives.
Book summaries for books written by Mary Shelley
Quotes
I ought to be thy Adam, but I am rather the fallen angel.
I am malicious because I am miserable.
There is love in me the likes of which you've never seen. There is rage in me the likes of which should never escape.
How mutable are our feelings, and how strange is that clinging love we have of life even in the excess of misery!
Man,
I had worked hard for nearly two years, for the sole purpose of infusing life into an inanimate body.
We are unfashioned creatures, but half made up, if one wiser, better, dearer than ourselves—such a friend ought to be.
It was the secrets of heaven and earth that I desired to learn.
I saw the dull yellow eye of the creature open; it breathed hard, and a convulsive motion agitated its limbs.
A new species would bless me as its creator and source; many happy and excellent natures would owe their being to me.
Nothing contributes so much to tranquillize the mind as a steady purpose—a point on which the soul may fix its intellectual eye.
If our impulses were confined to hunger, thirst, and desire, we might be nearly free; but now we are moved by every wind that blows and a chance word or scene that that word may convey to us.