Shelley places Victor Frankenstein's childhood in Geneva—a nod, perhaps, to where she first conjured him. In June 1816, Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin, then 18, joined her future husband ...

The tragedy still did not end there for Mary, who was an early preacher of “free love” but only ever had eyes for her poet ...

Mary, a widow at 24, wanted to preserve her husband's literary legacy. She meticulously edited and published Percy Shelley's works after his death, wrote extensively, and navigated a world that ...