Mary Shelley

Fiona Sampson's In Search of Mary Shelley reconstructs the author through letters, diaries and surviving records. The attraction is the relationship between a very young writer's imaginative work and a life shaped by intellectual family circles, loss and practical responsibilities. You do not need to be a Romantic-literature specialist. Frankenstein provides a familiar doorway, while the biography keeps Shelley from disappearing behind either her novel or her husband.