Volume 34, Number 18 · November 19, 1987
Frankenstein's Mother
By Claire Tomalin
Mary Shelley: A Biography
by Muriel Spark
E.P. Dutton, 248 pp., $19.95
The Journals of Mary Shelley: 1814–1844,Vol. I, 1814–1822 Vol. II, 1822–1844
edited by Paula R. Feldman, edited by Diana Scott-Kilvert
Oxford University Press (Clarendon Press), Vol. II, 316 pp., $84.00
Mary Shelley was depressed for most of her fifty-three years of life: an orphan, a widow, always lamenting. Muriel Spark suggests wittily that 'if there had been more wine in Mary's life there would have been fewer tears,' alleging that she was never drunk, on wine, literature, or love. It's true that low spirits seem to have been part of her genetic inheritance, and circumstances did everything to reinforce the tendency. She had reason to see herself as a victim.
Review, 3449 words
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