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Mary Shelley

(1797-1851), Novelist

Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley

Regency Portraits Catalogue Entry

Sitter associated with 3 portraits
The novelist Mary Shelley was deeply influenced by the writings of her parents Mary Wollstonecraft and William Godwin. When only sixteen, she eloped to the Continent with Percy Bysshe Shelley and married him two years later. In 1816, when they were neighbours of Byron, on the shores of Lake Geneva, Mary began Frankenstein: or the Modern Prometheus (1818) the tale of an idealistic student who discovers the secret of imparting life to inanimate matter. Contrasting scientific discovery with moral responsibility, Frankenstein, for the first time, seriously questioned the human impact of scientific research.

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Unknown woman, formerly known as Mary Shelley, by Samuel John Stump - NPG 1719

Unknown woman, formerly known as Mary Shelley

by Samuel John Stump
oil on canvas, 1831
NPG 1719

Mary Shelley, by Richard Rothwell - NPG 1235

Mary Shelley

by Richard Rothwell
oil on canvas, exhibited 1840
On display in Room 18 at the National Portrait Gallery
NPG 1235

Mary Shelley; Percy Bysshe Shelley, by George J. Stodart, after a monument by Henry Weekes - NPG D5956

Mary Shelley; Percy Bysshe Shelley

by George J. Stodart, after a monument by Henry Weekes
stipple engraving, (1853)
NPG D5956

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