Mary Shelley (August 30, 1797 – February 1, 1851) was an English writer best known for her 1818 Gothic novel Frankenstein: or, The Modern Prometheus. She was born into a prominent liberal intellectual family. Her mother, feminist Mary Wollstonecraft, died shortly after her birth. She was raised and educated by her father, the philosopher, atheist and anarchist William Godwin. She became romantically involved with the Romantic poet and philosopher Percy Bysshe Shelley in 1814, with whom she bore a child that died soon after birth. They married two years later in London after the suicide of Shelley’s first wife, Harriet, and unsuccessfully attempted to gain custody of Percy’s children.  The couple lived abroad  much of the time thereafter and enjoyed the company of a large group of accomplished friends, most notably the poet Lord Byron.  It was during this time that Mary wrote Frankenstein. She and Percy had two more children that died soon after birth before the birth of their fourth and only surviving child Percy Florence in 1819. Her husband Percy drowned in a sailing accident during a storm in Italy in 1822.  

She returned to England and dedicated her time to editing and promoting her husband’s work, raising her son, and her career as an author. She died of a brain tumor at age 53 after a decade of health problems. Recent decades of scholarship has enlarged the view of Mary Shelley’s work beyond Frankenstein and her involvement with her husband’s work, revealing her to be a radical thinker with a focus on cooperation, sympathy, and the greater participation of women as ways to improve society.