Mary Shelley

October 11, 2026

AI Summary

5 min read

It is June 1816, and an unseasonably cold, misty evening traps a small group inside the Villa Diodati on Lake Geneva. Lord Byron reads aloud a bone-chilling ghost story, and when he finishes, he snaps the book shut and proposes a challenge: each of them should write their own ghost story. The young Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin, just eighteen, sits silent, at a loss for an idea. Later that night, unable to sleep as a gale lashes the windows, a vision comes to her: a student of scientific arts who reanimates a corpse and creates a monster. That vision became Frankenstein, widely considered the first work of science fiction. But Mary Shelley’s own life was as sensational and tragic as anything in her novel—a real-life gothic story shaped by radical politics, devastating loss, and a fierce commitment to the philosophies she inherited.

The Daughter of Radicals

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What you'll learn

1 (01:02) **The Challenge at Villa Diodati** - The story opens in June 1816 at Lake Geneva, where a young Mary Shelley, Percy Shelley, Lord Byron, and John Polidori are trapped indoors by a volcanic winter. Byron proposes they each write a ghost story.
2 (06:06) **Born of Radicals** - Mary’s parents, Mary Wollstonecraft and William Godwin, are celebrated philosophers who oppose marriage—until Mary is conceived.
3 (10:11) **A Childhood of Reading and Rejection** - Mary is raised in a literary household but suffers from a lack of maternal love and her father’s waning attention.
4 (14:08) **Meeting Percy Bysshe Shelley** - Mary returns from Scotland to find her family’s finances in decline. She meets the poet Percy Shelley, a married man and political radical five years her senior.
5 (17:37) **Elopement and the Storm** - In July 1814, Mary and Claire flee with Percy, leaving his pregnant wife behind. Their Channel crossing nearly ends in disaster during a freak summer storm.
6 (22:51) **Journey Through War-Ravaged France** - The trio walks nearly 700 kilometers across battlefields to Switzerland, struggling with lack of funds and Mary’s ill health—likely because she is already pregnant.
7 (26:54) **Return to London and Tragedy** - Back in England, Mary’s father refuses to see her. Percy is stretched between his wife Harriet and Mary, while Claire remains suspiciously close to Percy.

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Show Notes

Mary Shelley is best known today as the author of Frankenstein, a Gothic novel widely considered the first work of science fiction. As demonstrated by her Swiss sojourn with the married Percy Shelley and the scandalous Lord Byron, Mary's own life was as sensational and tragic as anything contained within the pages of her famous novel. A real-life Gothic heroine and a serious author, her work profoundly influenced English genre fiction, and continues to inspire writers to this day.

But to what extent was Mary Shelley’s work influenced by the revolutionary politics and philosophies of her parents? What rash decisions and traumatic events shaped her work? And how does a scary story written almost two centuries ago continue to enthral readers and inspire writers and filmmakers today?

This is a Short History Of Mary Shelley

A Noiser podcast production. Hosted by John Hopkins. With thanks to Professor Fiona Sampson, a prize-winning poet and author of three literary biographies of Romantic women writers, including In Search of Mary Shelley: The Girl Who Wrote Frankenstein.

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