Reef manages to keep clear for readers the often complex tangle of Shelley's family relationships and friendships. Recounted chronologically, the narrative reads smoothly, spiced throughout with quotes from letters, journals, and poems. Nearly every page has images of people or places that help establish the social context of the early 1800s. The bibliography is impressive the author has mined primary and secondary sources to provide a detailed picture of Shelley's life. At a gathering in a house rented by Bryon, the group challenged each other to write a ghost story, and Shelley produced the story of Victor Frankenstein and the being he brought to life. Constantly short of funds, the couple often depended on the kindness of friends, including Lord Byron and editor/poet Leigh Hunt. Involved from age 16 in a relationship with the already married poet Percy Bysshe Shelley, the teen wandered Europe for much of their time together, escaping disapproving families in England. School Library Journal - Gr 7 Up-Reef traces the unconventional life of Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, beginning with the somewhat gruesome discovery after her death of her husband's shriveled heart in a portable writing desk.
Teen fans of Frankenstein will be doubly rewarded by both an account of the inspiration for the novel and the fascinating, scandal-rich life of its author. Quotes from letters, diaries, and poems, as well as photos and illustrations, enliven the text, and Reef does an excellent job of putting Mary Shelley’s life and work in context. Her atypical lifestyle (she was routinely lambasted by the public and shunned by her family) plays a significant role here, but her writing career is undeniably fascinating: Frankenstein, hailed as the first sci-fi novel, was only the first of many books Mary Shelley wrote, and her subsequent volumes, spanning a variety of genres, were largely forgotten until relatively recently. Booklist - Veteran biographer Reef adds yet another book to the growing stack of Mary Shelley biographies with this cogent account, which outlines key moments from Mary Shelley’s unusual life, including her childhood, grief over her mother, unconventional education, heartbreak over losing her children, and her scandalous relationship with Percy Bysshe Shelley, who was married when he first met Mary.
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