Mary Shelley Her Circle and Her Contemporaries

This collection of essays expands critical consideration of Mary Shelley’s placement within the age we call “Romantic,” wherein her texts converse with those of her family, her circle, and her contemporaries. Several essays address particularly how her texts interact with those of her husband Percy Bysshe Shelley, revealing new depth and breadth to their literary partnership. Others investigate interdisciplinary perspectives, such as her pieces in The Liberal or the ways in which the figure of Scheherezade haunts her works, while several essays also consider Mary Shelley’s textual relationships with contemporaries such as Thomas Moore and John Polidori. Still others tackle topics such as geopolitical relationships and the growth of opera as an art form, considering Mary Shelley’s commentary upon such contemporary issues, while William Godwin’s textual relationship with his daughter is further investigated. This collection suggests Mary Shelley’s texts merit further investigation not only for what they reveal about their author and her oeuvre, but for the ways in which they illuminate our understanding of the contexts in which they were composed.