| Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley was misunderstood, misrepresented, and unfairly critiqued. Though her novel, Frankenstein, has earned its rightful place in the literary canon, her other works and contributions have been wrongfully ignored and undervalued. Mary Shelley was a revolutionary, radical, and a non-conformist, but, like many women who lived before, during, and after her time period, Mary Shelley also had to learn to conform in order to survive. The acts of reconstruction and the "Victorianization" of her life fictionalized much of her documented history, and inevitably tainted many present views of her life and works; yet, by following the examples set by Bennett, Behrendt, and Sunstein who have devoted their time to re-interpreting Mary Shelley's life by examining her primary documents, it is possible to raise her up from the restraints and misrepresentations of the past so that she can be celebrated as the complex, inventive, irreverent writer whose desire for political and social reform was at the heart of her actions and literary expression. |
