The Last Man

Mary Shelley

Mary Shelley (1797–1851) was born to well-known parents: author and feminist Mary Wollstonecraft and philosopher William Godwin. When Mary was sixteen, she met the young poet Percy Bysshe Shelley, a devotee of her father’s teachings. In 1816, the two of them travelled to Geneva to stay with Lord Byron. One evening, while they shared ghost stories, Lord Byron proposed that they each write a ghost story of their own. Frankenstein was Mary’s contribution. Other works of hers include Mathilda, The Last Man, and The Fortunes of Perkin Warbeck.