Idiosyncrasy and idealism
Enjoys a joint study of Mary Shelley and Mary Wollstonecraft that says much about Georgian society
HALLIE RUBENHOLD Romantic Outlaws by Charlotte Gordon It may come as a surprise that two of the most outspoken women of the Georgian era, Mary Wollstonecraft (1759–97) and Mary Shelley (1797–1851), were mother and daughter. It’s equally surprising to discover that their lives have as yet never been examined together in a single work. Charlotte Gordon’s fascinating double biography remedies this omission while shedding new light on both lives.
Gordon’s narrative history is a skilful interweaving of the two stories. Although Wollstonecraft’s relationship with her daughter was brief – she died of puerperal fever 10 days after her birth – her influence remained ever-present. By juxtaposing their experiences, Gordon presents a compelling comparison of their struggles, adventures, romantic entanglements and, ultimately, the uniquely personal philosophies that helped to shape the writings for which they are best remembered: Wollstonecraft’s 1792 A Vindication of the Rights of Woman and Shelley’s Frankenstein (1818).
While Shelley is widely known, her mother is less famous, and Gordon makes good use of Wollstonecraft’s unusually passionate writings about herself tomake her biography shine. As the daughter of an abusive father, she learned to live according to her conscience rather than society’s conventions. Gordon makes no apologies for her complex subject’s idiosyncrasies. Wollstonecraft shunned the marriage market and the trappings of luxury, and was not ashamed to bear her first child out of wedlock or plead with the wife of her lover, Henry Fuseli, to permit her to live with them. Unwilling to compromise on her ideals, she was an advocate for women’s rights and remained a proponent of the French Revolution through its bloodiest phase. Yet when she became pregnant a second time by her lover, philosopher William Godwin, the couple saw the virtue in legitimising the child through marriage.
Shelley remained acutely aware that she had been the cause of her mother’s death. While her father did his best to educate his daughter in the radical principles that he had shared with her mother, he was not especially forthcoming with the affection that Mary craved. Godwin described his daughter as “singularly bold, somewhat imperious and active of mind”, but was surprised when, contrary to his wishes, she decided to throw her lot in with one of his political followers, the already married poet Percy Bysshe Shelley. Despite Godwin’s efforts to shield her from the social ostracism suffered by his wife, his daughter too was made to face controversy and ridicule.
Romantic Outlaws offers something much richer than the literary criticism often found in biographies of Wollstonecraft and Shelley: it provides a study of the condition of women in the Georgian era and succeeds in presenting a picture of the difficulties faced by those determined to make use of their
intellects and idealism.