A number of their mental anatomies reflect the influence of Jean-Jacques Rousseau's Confessions and his conceptions of mental transparency, sincerity, and environmental conditioning. Because his primary focus is on Godwinian and Shelleyan perspectives on the mind and its operations, Brewer avoids twentieth-century psychological terminology and ideas in his discussions of their fiction."

This collection of essays expands critical consideration of Mary Shelley’s placement within the age we call “Romantic,” wherein her texts converse with those of her family, her circle, and her contemporaries. Several essays address particularly how her texts interact with those of her husband Percy Bysshe Shelley, revealing new depth and breadth to their literary partnership. Others investigate interdisciplinary perspectives, such as her pieces in The Liberal or the ways in which the figure of Scheherezade haunts her works, while several essays also consider Mary Shelley’s textual relationships with contemporaries such as Thomas Moore and John Polidori. Still others tackle topics such as geopolitical relationships and the growth of opera as an art form, considering Mary Shelley’s commentary upon such contemporary issues, while William Godwin’s textual relationship with his daughter is further investigated. This collection suggests Mary Shelley’s texts merit further investigation not only for what they reveal about their author and her oeuvre, but for the ways in which they illuminate our understanding of the contexts in which they were composed.

Graham Allen provides both an introduction to and review of the critical responses to Mary Shelley's major fictions, from the Romantic period to the present day, while also pushing debates forward. The book moves beyond Frankenstein, presenting new readings of other texts such as Matilda, Valperga, The Last Man and Lodore.

The Encyclopedia of Romantic Literature is an authoritative three-volume reference work that covers British artistic, literary, and intellectual movements between 1780 and 1830, within the context of European, transatlantic and colonial historical and cultural interaction. Comprises over 275 entries ranging from 1,000 to 6,500 words arranged in A-Z format across three fully cross-referenced volumes Written by an international cast of leading and emerging scholars Entries explore genre development in prose, poetry, and drama of the Romantic period, key authors and their works, and key themes Also available online as part of the Wiley-Blackwell Encyclopedia of Literature, providing 24/7 access and powerful searching, browsing and cross-referencing capabilities

William Godwin’s Mandeville was described as his best novel by Percy Shelley, who sent a copy to Lord Byron, and it was immediately recognized by its other admirers as a work of unique power. Written one year after the battle of Waterloo and set in an earlier revolutionary period between the execution of Charles I and the Restoration, Mandeville is a novel of psychological warfare. The narrative begins with Mandeville’s rescue from the traumatic aftermath of the Ulster Rebellion of 1641 and proceeds through his early education by a fanatical Presbyterian minister to his persecution at Winchester school, his constant (and not unjustified) paranoia, and his confinement in an asylum. Mandeville’s final, desperate attempt to prevent his sister’s marriage to his enemy ends with his disfiguration, which also defaces endings based on settlement or reconciliation. The novel’s events have many resonances with Godwin’s own period. The historical appendices offer contemporary reviews, including Shelley’s letter to Godwin praising Mandeville, material explaining the novel’s complex historical background, and contemporary writings on war, madness, and trauma.

This collection showcases work on William Godwin (1756-1836) foregrounding new critical approaches and uncovering new texts. Godwin is a familiar presence in scholarship on the Shelley-Godwin circle and on Dissenting intellectual circles, but the present collection considers him closely as an author and thinker on his own terms. The range of texts and topics covered by this collection will be of interest both to scholars familiar with Godwin and those approaching his work for the first time.

Set in Europe during the Protestant Reformation and first published in 1799, St. Leon tells the story of an impoverished aristocrat who obtains the philosopher's stone and the elixir of immortality. In this philosophical fable, endless riches and immortal life prove to be curses rather than gifts and transform St. Leon into an outcast. William Godwin's second full-length novel explores the predicament of a would-be philanthropist whose attempts to benefit humanity are frustrated by superstition and ignorance. This Broadview edition includes a critical introduction and full annotation. The appendices include contemporary reviews of the novel; Godwin’s writings on immortality, the domestic affections, and alchemy; and selections from works influenced by St. Leon, most notably Mary Shelley's Frankenstein.

This volume considers the work and life of Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley (1797-1851). It looks not only at Frankenstein and its composition, sources, themes and reception but at the wide range of other work by Shelley including such novels as The Last Man and Mathilda and her tales, reviews, travel writing and the (until recently neglected) Literary Lives of Italian, Spanish, Portuguese and French writers. There are detailed entries on her personal and/or literary relationship with her parents Mary Wollstonecraft and William Godwin, her husband Percy Bysshe Shelley, Byron, Coleridge and Claire Clairmont; on her religion, feminism, politics, relation to Romanticism, portraits and representation in drama, film and television; and on the influence of her work on such writers as Poe, Elizabeth Gaskell, the Brontës, Dickens and H.G. Wells.

"Perhaps best recognized for the horror films it has spawned, 'Frankenstein,' written by 19-year-old Mary Shelley, was first published in 1818. 'Frankenstein' warns against the irresponsible use of science and technology and makes readers reconsider who the world's monsters really are and how society contributes to creating them. Ideal for research or general interest, this resource furnishes students with a collection of the most insightful critical essays available on this Gothic thriller, selected from a variety of literary sources."--

Charles E. Robinson, Professor Emeritus of English at The University of Delaware, definitively transformed study of the novel Frankenstein with his foundational volume The Frankenstein Notebooks and, in nineteenth century studies more broadly, brought heightened attention to the nuances of writing and editing. Frankenstein and STEAM consolidates the generative legacy of his later work on the novel's broad relation to topics in science, technology, engineering, arts, and mathematics (STEAM). Seven chapters written by leading and emerging scholars pay homage to Robinson's later perspectives of the novel and a concluding postscript contains remembrances by his colleagues and students. This volume not only makes explicit the question of what it means to be human, a question Robinson invited students and colleagues to examine throughout his career, but it also illustrates the depth of the field and diversity of those who have been inspired by Robinson's work. Frankenstein and STEAM offers direction for continuing scholarship on the intersections of literature, science, and technology. Published by the University of Delaware Press. Distributed worldwide by Rutgers University Press.