Frankenstein - Mary Shelley

The daughter of William Godwin and Mary Wollstonecraft.
William Godwin was a political philosopher.
Mary Wollstonecraft was a philosopher, protofeminist and a women’s rights advocate.
She was raised by her father as her mother died after giving birth to her.
Mary had an older half-sister, Frances Imlay (1794-1816), also known as Fanny Godwin and Frances Wollstonecraft, who was the daughter of Mary Wollstonecraft and Gilbert Imlay (1754-1828), an American diplomat and commercial speculator.
Gowin remarried when Mary was four years old to a woman called Mary Jane Clairmont (née de Vial).
Clairmont was their neighbour, and Mary had a difficult relationship with her.
Clairmont had a daughter called Clara Mary Jane Clairmont (1798-1879) with John Lethbridge (1746-1815), however Clairmont claimed that Clara’s father was ‘Charles Clairmont’ and adopted the surname for herself and her daughter.
Clairmont was a bookseller, publisher and English author, however she was often ignored and underestimated due to Godwin’s literary friends idolising and preferred Wollstonecraft to her.
Clara was known as Jane throughout childhood, and changed her name to Clara, and then to Claire in order to have a more romantic-sounding name.
Claire was also obsessed with Lord Byron, and had his daughter, Allegra Byron, who died at the age of 5. After the death of her daughter, she hated Byron and blamed him for the death.

Mary started a relationship with Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792-1822, aged 29), one of her father's political supporters, in 1814.
However this relationship was considered controversial due to Percy already being married.
Her father did not approve of this relationship, but due to his own financial difficulties, allowed Mary and Claire to leave England with Percy.
She and Percy departed for France and toured Europe with her stepsister, Claire Clairmont.
Mary was carrying Percy's child when they arrived in England.
She and Percy had to deal with rejection from British society (ostracisation), ongoing debt, and the death of their prematurely born daughter over the course of the following two years.
After Percy Shelley's first wife, Harriet, committed suicide, they wed in the latter half of 1816.
They had four children together, however only Percy Florence Shelley (1819-1889, aged 70) survived.
On the 1st of July, 1822, Percy and Edwards sailed Don Juan (Shelley’s boat) to Livorno in order to meet Lord Byron and Leigh Hunt. On the 8th of July, after the meeting, Shelley and Williams sailed to Lerici, however the boat was list in a storm. Ten days later, three bodies (Percy, William and their boat boy) were washed ashore and identified.
Percy was cremated on the 16th of August and Mary kept what she believed was his heart and reportedly kept it shrouded in silk on her desk.