Charlotte Gordon

This book about Mary Wollstonecraft, an English feminist, and her daughter Mary Shelley, author of Frankenstein, is probably not a book I'm properly qualified to review. I will admit to not being familiar with Wollstonecraft, though the name of her most famous work, The Vindication of the Rights of Women, was not unknown to me. Regardless, the reporting here makes it clear that Wollstonecraft was well before her time in advocacy for women's rights. On the other hand, her personal relationships with men seemed totally at odds with most of what she espoused for women in general society. To further prove my point of disqualification, I am not a big fan of poetry for reasons that have much more to do with clarity and directness of message than with skill of language manipulation, and this book is written by a poet about several very well known poets, in connection with the two main subjects of this book. Poetry lovers can stop reading now, because I'm bound to say something sacrilegious about poets and poetry, assuming I haven't already done so. William Wordsworth, Samuel Coleridge, Robert Southey, Lord Byron, Percy Bysshe Shelley, Alfred Lord Tennyson, and maybe a few I'm forgetting, are mentioned, with very broad degrees of intimacy, directly in relationship to the main subjects of this book. That's interesting to me, given that the two main subjects are best known as a feminist advocate and a fictional novelist. I could argue that this whole book is really just a poetry buff's deep dive into two women connected to famous poets. To an extent it is, but because of the vast resources of material available to the author, and the author's very commendable persistence and skill in researching all that material, the book is much more than just a poetry fan's treat. I will argue that the author's biases toward poetry and toward the two subjects seeps through too often, but the author gave me plenty of detailed reporting to allow me to come to somewhat different conclusions about both the two subjects and to the people connected to them. Should you be a potential reader who made it this far in the review, I can say with some degree of certainty that poetry lovers (especially of those mentioned often in this book), fans of Frankenstein or its author, and persons well versed in feminist scholarship, will very likely enjoy reading this book for extra information you are not likely to find anywhere else with such ease.… (mais)

This dual biography of Mary Wollstonecraft and her daughter, Mary Shelley, is written in alternate chapters, following the lives of both women who really never knew each other, as Wollstonecraft died of 'childbed fever' 10 days after her daughter was born. Wollstonecraft was an early feminist who wrote 'A Vindication of the Rights of Woman,' among many other works. Mary Shelley is the product of the union of Wollstonecraft and William Godwin, another famous writer and philosopher. Mary Shelley married Percy Bysshe Shelley, a famous poet. She was most famous for her novel 'Frankenstein.' Both women were ostracized from society because they led unconventional lives, with love affairs that led to illegitimate children, and they both paid a high price for their views as early feminists.Interestingly, and sadly, the men in their lives generally treated them badly. Wollstonecraft attempted suicide twice because of failed love affairs, only to die once she was married and delivered her daughter. Mary Shelley had to deal with an unfaithful spouse, and the loss of all but one of her children. The book was beautifully written. The format of alternating chapters worked, but I did find that I had to go back and re-read the last page or so of each Wollstonecraft/Shelley chapter before settling my mind back to each narrative. One thing that stands out for me is how misunderstood each of them was, trying to advance women's rights at a time when their words represented sacrilege in the public eye. Both, also, had their works or biographies altered after death, Mary W's by Godwin, and Mary S's by her daughter-in-law, and in both cases their biographers did not serve them well, causing the public to reject their works. It was not until more recent times that their reputations have been resuscitated.… (mais)