Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley (August 30, 1797 - February 1, 1851) was an English novelist best known for her Gothic novel Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus (1818), which is regarded as an early form of science fiction. She also edited and promoted the works of her husband, Percy Bysshe Shelley, a Romantic poet and philosopher. Her father was political philosopher William Godwin, and her mother was feminist philosopher Mary Wollstonecraft. Mary's mother died 11 days after she was born. Her father reared her and provided her with a rich, though informal, education, urging her to follow his own anarchist political ideas. When Mary was four, her father married a neighbor, Mary Jane Clairmont, with whom she had a tumultuous relationship. Mary began a relationship with one of her father's political supporters, Percy Bysshe Shelley, who was already married, in 1814. She and Percy left for France with her stepsister, Claire Clairmont, and traveled through Europe. Mary was pregnant with Percy's child when they returned to England. She and Percy experienced ostracism, persistent debt, and the death of their prematurely born daughter during the next two years. They married in late 1816, after Percy Shelley's first wife, Harriet, committed herself.
