British · 1797–1851
Mary Shelley created science fiction at eighteen. Born Mary Godwin, daughter of the feminist philosopher Mary Wollstonecraft and the radical thinker William Godwin, she eloped at sixteen with the married poet Percy Bysshe Shelley. In the summer of 1816, trapped by rain at Lake Geneva with Shelley, Byron, and John Polidori, she dreamed the story of a scientist who creates life. Frankenstein appeared in 1818, anonymous, and was attributed to her husband before she claimed authorship. The novel posed questions that would haunt subsequent centuries: what responsibilities do creators bear to their creations? What makes us human? After her husband drowned in 1822, Shelley returned to England and supported herself and her son through writing—novels, stories, travel books, biographical essays. None achieved Frankenstein reputation. She edited her husband works and preserved his legacy while creating her own. Her novel invented a new kind of monster: not supernatural evil but abandoned, suffering intelligence. Victor Frankenstein crime is not creation but neglect.