Mary Shelley’s Death Filled Life

Mary Shelley led a fascinating, albeit death filled life. Born to two famous writers, Shelley was gifted into the literary elite by birth. Shortly after she was born, Shelley’s mother died of infection (the attending physician removed her placenta piece-by-piece with unclean hands). Because her mother was only available in spirit, Shelley often visited her mother’s headstone and spent her childhood in cemeteries, particularly to escape her disapproving stepmother as a young girl.

When Shelley met her future husband, Percy Shelley, the two fell quickly in love though he was already married. Nonetheless, after declaring their love for one another over her mother’s grave, the pair ran away together and whiled through Europe. But death followed Shelley and remained a constant figure throughout her life. The Shelley’s were only able to marry after Percy Shelley’s first wife committed suicide. This news was on the heels of the suicide of Mary Shelley’s half-sister, spiraling both Shelley’s into depression. Shortly after, the couple’s first child died, then their second and third children followed in death, only their fourth and final child survived. When their son was three years old, Percy Shelley died in a boating accident, his body washed ashore 10 days later. His friends cremated his body on the beach and one pulled Shelley’s calcified heart from the flames, preserving it in wine and later passing it on to Mary Shelley. The heart of Percy Shelley was found in Mary’s desk, along side locks of hair from each of her children who died, after Mary Shelley’s death in 1852.