The Cambridge Companion to Mary Shelley

by Edited by Esther Schor

• ISBN13: 9780521809849
• ISBN10: 0521809843
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2003-12-22
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Summary

Known from her day to ours as 'the Author of Frankenstein', Mary Shelley indeed created one of the central myths of modernity. But she went on to survive all manner of upheaval - personal, political, and professional - and to produce an oeuvre of bracing intelligence and wide cultural sweep. The Cambridge Companion to Mary Shelley helps readers to assess for themselves her remarkable body of work. In clear, accessible essays, a distinguished group of scholars place Shelley's works in several historical and aesthetic contexts: literary history, the legacies of her parents William Godwin and Mary Wollstonecraft, and of course the life and afterlife, in cinema, robotics and hypertext, of Frankenstein. Other topics covered include Mary Shelley as a biographer and cultural critic, as the first editor of Percy Shelley's works, and as travel writer. This invaluable volume is complemented by a chronology, a guide to further reading and a select filmography.

Table of Contents

Chronology

Preface

Part I. 'The Author of Frankenstein': 1. Making a 'monster': an introduction to Frankenstein Anne K. Mellor

2. Frankenstein, Matilda, and the legacies of Godwin and Wollstonecraft Pamela Clemit

3. Frankenstein, feminism, and literary theory Diane Long Hoeveler

4. Frankenstein on Film Esther Schor

5. Frankenstein's futurity: from replicants to robotics Jay Clayton

Part II. Fictions and Myths: 6. Valperga Stuart Curran

7. The last man Kari E. Lokke

8. Historical novelist Deidre Lynch

9. Falkner and other fictions Kate Ferguson Ellis

10. Stories for the Keepsake Charlotte Sussman

11. Proserpine and Midas Judith Pascoe

Part III. Professional Personae: 12. Mary Shelley, editor Susan J. Wolfson

13. Letters: The public/private self Betty T. Bennett

14. Mary Shelley as biographer Greg Kucich

15. Mary Shelley's travel writing Jeanne Moskal

16. Mary Shelley as cultural critic Timothy Morton

Further reading

Selected filmography.