Selected Letters

The letters of Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley reveal a remarkable woman living in a remarkable age. They date from October 1814 – shortly after her elopment 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.Reflecting her gifts as a sharp-eyed observer of her changing world, Mary Shelley’s letters give a first-hand account of her life with Shelley, their literary aspirations and the extraordinary Shelley-Byron circle. They also describe 19th century life in Britain and abroad.

Reviews of Selected Letters

Praise for the complete edition: "Not merely a marvelous piece of scholarship, but also an act of equity, of making good."–Richard Holmes, 'New York Times Book Review.' "A fine and definitive edition."–Claire Tomalin, 'New York Review of Books'