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In Mary Shelley, Catherine Reef brings this passionate woman, brilliant writer, and forgotten feminist into crisp focus, detailing a life that was remarkable both before and after the publication of her immortal masterpiece. Success soon followed for Mary, but also great tragedy and misfortune. It was there, during a cold and wet summer, that she first imagined her story about a mad scientist who brought a corpse back to life. Raised by her father, the political philosopher William Godwin, Shelley ran away to Lake Geneva with the poet Percy Bysshe Shelley when she was only sixteen years old. This "fascinating, scandal-rich" biography recounts a story full of drama, death, and one of the strangest romances in literary history ( Booklist). Most famous for her iconic tale of gothic horror, Frankenstein, Mary Shelley led a life that could itself have been a gothic novel.

Shelley comes solidly to life as a woman who, like her mother, Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin, bucked the conventions of her time to follow her own star.This YA biography offers "a thorough, sensitive portrayal of one of literature ' s most remarkable authors, illustrated with period portraits and engravings " ( Kirkus). Reef manages to keep clear for readers the often complex tangle of Shelley's family relationships and friendships. Recounted chronologically, the narrative reads smoothly, spiced throughout with quotes from letters, journals, and poems. Nearly every page has images of people or places that help establish the social context of the early 1800s. The bibliography is impressive the author has mined primary and secondary sources to provide a detailed picture of Shelley's life. At a gathering in a house rented by Bryon, the group challenged each other to write a ghost story, and Shelley produced the story of Victor Frankenstein and the being he brought to life.

Constantly short of funds, the couple often depended on the kindness of friends, including Lord Byron and editor/poet Leigh Hunt. Involved from age 16 in a relationship with the already married poet Percy Bysshe Shelley, the teen wandered Europe for much of their time together, escaping disapproving families in England. Gr 7 Up-Reef traces the unconventional life of Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, beginning with the somewhat gruesome discovery after her death of her husband's shriveled heart in a portable writing desk.