According to the culture of sentiment, the purity of her heart and spirit meant she stood outside—that is, above—the ordinary run of human beings. It was also true that being abandoned had two meanings: being left behind, but also being wild, or living outside the law.

Born eight weeks too early, the baby survived for only thirteen days.

“A bad wife is like Winter in a house.”

Shelley, on the other hand, incest was an opportunity to expose the corruption of institutions and the men at their helm.

She frequently referred to the book as her “offspring” or “progeny.”

Far braver and more resourceful than her stepdaughter Mary would ever acknowledge, she survived many misfortunes, including a three-month stint in debtors’ prison with two babies.

While she wrote the final paragraphs in March, she had been troubled by nightmares “of the dead being alive.” Her baby girl. Fanny. Her mother. And the most terrifying: Harriet, her hair streaming, floating up from the Serpentine, staring at the woman who had stolen her husband.

True chastity lay not in virginity, but in fidelity to one’s beloved.

In Frankenstein, without maternal love the creature turns to violence and Frankenstein’s ambition is allowed to flourish unchecked;