Mary W. Shelley

  • Birth

    Author of 'Frankenstein'.
    Her father was the political philosopher William Godwin, and her mother was the philosopher and feminist Mary Wollstonecraft. Mary Godwin's mother died when she was eleven days old; afterwards, she and her older half-sister, Fanny Imlay, were raised by her father.
  • Mary meets Percy

    Around the age of sixteen.
    Percy Shelley was married to Harriet Westbrook at the time and he liked the idea of free love. He was a twenty-one-year-old poet.
  • First child born

    Mary gave birth to a two-months premature baby girl, who was not expected to survive.
  • Starts writing Frankenstein

    In a waking dream, Mary Godwin conceived the idea for Frankenstein. She started writing in Schwitzerland, after a night of telling each other ghost stories.
  • William is born

    2nd child.
  • Marriage

    Percy and Mary get married.
  • Clara Everina born

    3rd child born.
  • Clara dies.

    She died shortly after arriving in Venice.
  • William dies

    Dies from cholera or typhoid infection.
  • Percy Florence is born

    4th child. Only surviving child.
  • Miscarries

    Mary miscarried the 5th child.
  • Percy dies

    Percy and Edward Williams set out on the return journey to Lerici with their eighteen-year-old boatboy, Charles Vivian. They never reached their destination.
  • Death

    Dies from puerperal fever. The last decade of her life was dogged by illness, probably caused by the brain tumour that was to kill her at the age of 53.