The Tragedy of the Shelley Children

Mary Shelley wrote one of the most famous pieces of Gothic fiction in history. A superstitious person might think she paid for her immortal literary name with the grief she carried in her life.

Last week, my post about Mary Shelley took on a somber tone as I shifted the spotlight to Percy Shelley’s first wife, Harriet.

This turn of events wasn’t planned. Something moved me to give Harriet her rightful place in the Frankenstein narrative. She seems to have been professionally erased from the Shelleys’ story, in that way that Victorians were won…