Talk:Mary Shelley/Archive 1

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Text from September 2001

While she started work on Frankenstein at Byron's villa in Geneva, the ghost story bit is largely apocryphal (the power of modern cinema!). More importantly, she was reading Ovid at the time which introduced her to the idea of Prometheus which was to be one of the central philosophical pivots of the work. Moreover, she is more commonly known as Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, in much the same way as F Scott Fitzgerald is not known as F Fitzgerald... I am relinking accordingly. sjc

sentence fragment

This sentence fragment was in the article, and upon rereading it, I found it less and less convincing:

"He decided to kill himself with a revolving spud gun, this was later sent to ferensics for DNA analysis to reveal that he was a girl[.]"

On the grounds that potato shooters are largely non-lethal and were not prevalent in that time, that Shelley was in fact male, that DNA analysis had not been invented yet, and that "forensics" is not spelled that way, I have removed the above specimen. I hope no one objects. Vivacissamamente 07:12, 3 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Banned

"South Africa's apartheid regime banned a number of classic books; in 1955, for instance, the New York Times reported that Mary Shelley's Frankenstein was banned there as "indecent, objectionable, or obscene" http://digital.library.upenn.edu/books/banned-books.html Ogg 12:32, 6 Oct 2004 (UTC)

halcyon summer

In its rather new form, I like the article, but I'm concerned about the extent to which it is currently encyclopedic. It now reads like an excerpt from a book of literary criticism, rather than an encyclopedia article, (and I wonder how many of our readers know what a "halcyon summer" is). What do other people think? func(talk) 14:05, 11 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Sex on Graves

I'm trying to find out some more info on Mary Shelley and her alleged sexual fetish of having sex on her mother's grave. Any one know where I could find info on this subject? Sveden 21:29, 16 May 2005 (UTC)

Jewish?

Was Shelley Jewish? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 202.76.185.86 (talk • contribs) 06:32, 18 September 2005 (UTC)

No. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 130.126.39.121 (talk • contribs) 18:26, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

Consistency

"Over the following years, Mary's household grew to include her own children by Percy, occasional friends, and Claire's daughter by Byron."

The Wikipedia entry on Claire Clairmont says Byron accepted custody of their daughter and placed the child in an Italian convent, where she died at age five. Could an expert please resolve this for consistency? Durova 01:32, 6 November 2005 (UTC)

why does it matter? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.1.179.204 (talk • contribs) 02:57, 24 June 2006

It matters because accuracy is key (who wants to look something up in an encyclopedia and find what they're reading erroneous(sp?)) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.47.57.133 (talk • contribs) 14:41, 4 August 2006

Another mark of inconsistency between articles is the mention, in this article, that Mary Shelly was Mary Wolstonecraft's second daughter. Yet, the article about Mary Wolstonecraft states that she had only one daughter. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 144.51.50.70 (talk • contribs) 12:08, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

Quotation Mark Errors

Can one miss the darkling reflection of the Beckford character's "insolent desire to "penetrate the secrets of heaven" in both "Alastor" ...

The quotation marks here are a bit strange. I believe there should be another pair of quotation marks after "desire"? So it will read, instead: Can one miss the darkling reflection of the Beckford character's "insolent desire" to "penetrate the secrets of heaven" in both "Alastor" ...

But I'm not actually sure if the quote before "penetrate" is in error instead. Any ideas? The whole quote is rather confusing.

—Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.10.239.92 (talk • contribs) 20:24, 19 March 2006 (UTC)

Inacerecy

Mary Wollstonecraft wrote Maria not Mary Shelly —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.119.22.77 (talk • contribs) 20:07, 2 May 2006 (UTC)

Mary Wollstonecraft's death?

according to: Ty, Eleanor. “Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley.” Dictionary of Literary Biography. Ed. Bradford K. Mudge. Vol. 116. Detroit:Gale, 1992. 105-107.

Mary Wollstonecraft died 11 days after Mary's birth (as opposed to 10 which is what this article says). I'm just a student working on a report, but perhaps somebody needs to look into this and perhaps get this changed, maybe the Dictionary of Literary Biography is wrong...

—Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.47.57.133 (talk • contribs) 19:13, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

who is whom and whose?

Her son, Sir Percy Shelley, arranged for her parents to be exhumed and re-buried next to her; he and his wife are also buried there. It's confusing whom do you refer to. Jclerman 15:40, 14 September 2006 (UTC)

Quality

This article lacks structure and focus. It reads like a magazine article not like an encyclopedia entry - can someone target it for clean up, or deletion. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 87.162.58.60 (talk • contribs) 13:02, 6 October 2006 (UTC)

Biased?

Needs some rewording, methinks. Parts of it sound very harsh toward P.B. Shelley. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 172.193.54.64 (talk • contribs) 00:35, 13 October 2006 (UTC)

Atheist?

Wasn't her father, William Godwin, an atheist? She also married an atheist. So, was she infact, the same? I'm not sure is it is important, but I was just curious myself. IronCrow 01:08, 27 October 2006 (UTC)

this article is terrible

i think that this article was poorly written and should be destroyed. i dont think that this article was worth my time this article was really bad —Preceding unsigned comment added by Awertabrehyfdys (talk • contribs)

So work toward improving it. --Akhonji 18:47, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

I suspect that this infantile comment was written and reinstated by one of the infantile vandals that plague this page and should be deleted again as it is unsigned.--Grahamec 14:37, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

In my opinion, the above reminder was valuable and conveys an answer to an important misconception that new users often have about Wikipedia- that is, the idea that when you see a problem, you should take the initiative to fix it. I would not object to the comment being moved to the unsigning user's page, but I do not think that it is vandalism to reinstate commentary on an article's content. --64.132.163.178 19:46, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

I never said it was vandalism to reinstate the comment, but it is offensive to use over-large and repeated headlines.--Grahamec 23:04, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

Actual contributions to the ghost-story writing contest

RE: "One guest, Dr. John Polidori, came up with The Vampyre, later to become a strong influence on Bram Stoker's Dracula. Other guests wove tales of equal horror ..."

From Stoker's notes of several years earlier, circa 1890, the above comment: "a strong influence" seems a bit overly strong. At least not direcly, though it did set a new dynamic for the tales from the ages before; which then changed the enviromental millieu of vampire stories written in later times, including Stoker's.

Percy Bysshe Shelley never produced anything for the challenge in 1816. As I recall Jane/Claire Clairmont was not at the party at all(I'll check). Polidori produced a very poor scrap of a story unrelated to "The Vampyre". I'll try to find Mary Shelley's description of it. I think it was eventually published by Polidori; I'll find the name and include that reference.

Lord Byron produced a 'fragment' which was published later as: "Fragment of a Novel, written June 17, 1816". Later, with Byron's permission, John Polidori rewrote and expanded the 'fragment' and eventually published his (later) work as "The Vampyre", published April 1819; which was the very first vampire story written/published in English. {Without Polidori's consent some of the first printing was under Byron's name, and some copies were annonymous, the publisher thinking, correctly, that they would sell better. Lord Byron angrily denied being the author; eventually Polidori was credited with an attribution to Lord Byron, this debaucle and the popularity of "The Vampyre", apparantly destroyed the friendship between the two men; and later Bryon aknowledged his work just inspired Polidori's when his "Fragment of a Novel" was published with Mazeppa in June, 1819.}

Note: Over the decades before Bram Stoker's Dracula was published in 1897, there were two other vampire stories in English, a "penny dreadful" serial of 109 installments beginning in 1845, later republished in volumes: "Varney the Vampyre"; and then there was: "Carmilla" by Joseph Sheridan le Fanu, published in 1872.

"Carmilla" seems to be a much stronger direct 'influence' on Stoker's "Dracula" than Polidori's "The Vanpyre".

Also note that 'vampyres' in stories back as far a the dark ages more resemble what we in America call 'zombies', i.e. 'the undead' and had no association with bats until after the 15th century since all three species of vampire bats are from the Americas and they were named such because of their habits resembelance to the mythical Europian creatures, not the other way around.

--dns 08:07, 20 December 2006 (UTC)