The MaryAuthor Shelley LIFE Mary Shelley was born Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin on 30th August 1797, in London, England. She was the daughter of the philosopher1 William Godwin and of the feminist writer Mary Wollstonecraft, who died ten days after her daughter s birth. Little Mary didn t have a happy childhood2; when her father re-married, she didn t have a good relationship with her stepmother3. Also, her stepsisters were given a good education, but she wasn t. Luckily, her father s library and the influence of some special guests, such as writers Coleridge and Wordsworth who often went to her house, helped her become the writer we know today. A student of her father s was also the poet Percy Bysshe Shelley. He was married, but in 1814, started a relationship with Mary. Her father didn t approve of it, but the couple ran away, travelling through France and Germany. Mary got pregnant4 but lost her baby and in 1816 moved to Geneva, Switzerland. In the meantime, two suicides happened: one of Mary s half-sisters, and Percy s wife, who at the time was pregnant. After that, Mary and Percy Shelley got married, but it wasn t an easy marriage for her because of her husband s unfaithfulness5 and the death of another two of their children. The only child to become an adult was Percy Florence, born in 1819. In 1822 another very sad event hit Mary when she was just 24: her husband died in an accident while sailing6 in the Gulf of La Spezia, Italy, also known as the Gulf of Poets. Mary had to start working hard for her son s and her future. She died in 1851, at age 53, in London. Her body is in St Peter s Church in Bournemouth. 1. philosopher: someone who studies or writes about the meaning of life. 2. childhood: the time when someone is a child. 3. stepmother: the woman who has married your father but who is not your biological mother. 4. pregnant: having a baby developing inside their body. 5. unfaithfulness: the fact of having a sexual relationship with a person who is not your partner. 6. to sail: to travel by boat on the water. 4