Romantic Outlaws: The Extraordinary Lives of Mary Wollstonecraft and Her Daughter Mary Shelley

by Charlotte Gordon

  Interestingly, despite the significant role Mary played in bringing his work into public view, no one has ever accused Shelley of not writing his own poems, although Mary’s contributions are at least as substantial as his edits were to Frankenstein. This is because, unlike Shelley, Mary covered her tracks. Although she wrote an anonymous preface to the edition, not once did she refer to her own editorial role. On the one hand, she had to hide her identity from Sir Timothy, but she also wanted to present Shelley as a great artist who needed no editing. In addition, she was aware that, as a woman, she would face criticism for daring to tamper with her husband’s work, no matter how much everyone disapproved of Shelley in the first place.

  Within six months, Posthumous Poems was ready for publication. It went on sale in June of 1824 and sold briskly until Sir Timothy got wind of it. Although he could not prove it, he knew that this was Mary’s doing. Furious at his daughter-in-law, he stopped sales, forcing the publisher to recall all unsold copies, but he was too late to stop Mary’s vision of Shelley from taking hold. Those lucky enough to own a copy passed Posthumous Poems along to their friends, while those who did not have the book contented themselves with copying poems from others and sharing them. The unsigned preface declared that Shelley had been an ethereal spirit, a gentle artist removed from politics and controversy. Mary did not mention his radicalism—his calls for reform, his atheism, his declarations on behalf of free love. Her intention was to free his name from scandal, not to inflame the public.

  In 1824, though, it was impossible for Mary to know how well she had succeeded at establishing a new reputation for Shelley, and, deprived of the right to publish his work, or even mention his name in print, she turned back to her own writing. Gradually her imagination reasserted itself and a story gathered shape that would result in a new novel, The Last Man, as cheerless as its title suggests. Mary set the story in the twenty-first century, when a mysterious plague wipes out all of humanity except for one survivor who cries, “I am a tree rent by lightning…I am alone in the world…,” sentiments that perfectly reflected Mary’s own feelings.

  That May, while she drafted the early pages of The Last Man, more bad news arrived. It was beginning to seem to Mary like a “law of nature” that those she loved would die. This time it was Byron. He had succumbed to a fever while fighting for Greece’s independence from Turkey. Those who were left—the Hunts, Thomas Hogg, Jane Williams, Edward Trelawny, and Claire—could never measure up to Shelley and Byron, or “the Elect,” as she called them. In her diary, she reflected that her new novel now seemed an even more apt description of her real experiences: “The Last Man! Yes, I may well describe that solitary being’s feeling, feeling myself as the last relic of a beloved race, my companions extinct before me.”

  When summer came, Mary acted on her desire to be near Jane and moved to Kentish Town, a sleepy country hamlet sheltered by the wooded high country of Hampstead and connected to the city by only one road, a dirt track that ran right past Mary’s new lodgings. The railroad would soon invade this peaceful village, not far from Somers Town, but in the 1820s, farmhouses and gentlemen’s retreats dotted the countryside. Percy was delighted to see Jane’s children, his Italian playfellows, and Mary was happy to live near the fields of her childhood. In the afternoons she watched Percy play outside, disappearing from view in the hay, flying his kite, far from the smog and grime of the city.

  The reality of her most recent loss was brought home when Byron’s funeral procession marched by her house, winding its way north to his lordship’s ancestral estates in Newstead. Mary watched from the window, her heart aching. She saw herself as a victim of fate, spared for reasons she could not know or understand, and she poured these feelings into her novel: in the book’s climactic scene, the last man steps on board a ship, bound for nowhere, adrift and alone.

  To ease her sorrow, she devoted herself to Jane and stayed on in Kentish Town when the fall came. In the afternoons, the two women walked for miles in the countryside. Percy went to a small day school down the street, allowing Mary to work without distraction in the morning. What she did not know, and, indeed had never known, was that Jane continued to be duplicitous. Her latest secret was that she was conducting an affair, her evenings enlivened by a visitor she did not mention to Mary.

  Thomas Hogg, in keeping with his pattern of falling in love with Shelley’s wives and paramours, had become smitten with Jane when she returned to London. Jane had intrigued him when she whispered that she and not Mary had been Shelley’s last and truest love. Although Jane was not particularly attracted to the prosaic and awkward Hogg, it had been difficult to return to London as an unwed mother; she had been snubbed, attacked, and ridiculed. It was refreshing to be admired and so she allowed the affair to begin, although she insisted they keep it hidden from their friends and family. That summer she had made a partial confession to Mary, telling her about Hogg’s advances but also implying she had rejected him. Mary could understand spurning Hogg, not only because she had once done so, but because she, too, had to discourage potential suitors. The American playwright John Howard Payne had proposed to Mary after meeting her at her father’s house. Other men, whose names she did not bother to record in her journal, also stepped forward, fascinated by the idea of her being Shelley’s widow and attracted by her brilliance and her gentle manners. As she lamented to Byron’s grieving mistress, Teresa, “if you knew the men that dare to aspire to be the successors of Shelley and Williams—My God—we are reduced to this.”

  This situation could not last long, and by the end of January, disaster struck. One night Hogg arrived for a visit while Mary and Percy were still at Jane’s expecting their customary evening of games and conversation by the fire, but Jane wanted time alone with Hogg and told Mary to leave, so abruptly and so unkindly that the reverberations are still audible in Mary’s journal: “I know now why I am outcast—So be it!…I make not her happiness—she is happy now—has been so all day—while I in gr disgrace—‘with fortune and men’s eyes / I all alone beweep my outcast state,’ ” Mary raged. Too late she understood the true nature of Jane’s relationship with Hogg. “O miserable fool—grieve but be not mad—” she scrawled, and then the rest of the page is ripped out. Clearly someone, perhaps Mary, though more likely her Victorian descendants, deemed her words too scandalous for posterity. Perhaps Mary was overly explicit in her condemnation of Jane’s sexual relationship with Hogg. Intriguingly, however, it may have been that Mary was overly explicit in her own feelings, raising the question of the exact nature of her relationship with Jane.

  Mary knew plenty of women who had female lovers. The famous ladies of Llangolen, who had fled their disapproving families to live together in Wales in 1780, were celebrities of the era and counted Godwin as one of their friends. Shelley had visited them when he and Harriet lived in Wales. Byron, too, had made a pilgrimage to their cottage. To the poets and their friends, the ladies offered a real-life example of how they might follow the dictates of the heart rather than the rules of society. Mary herself had a new acquaintance, Mary Diana Dods (Doddy), the illegitimate daughter of a Scottish earl, who was notorious for her love affairs with women. She had been introduced to Doddy at a party Jane had urged her to attend and been impressed by her “charm and fascination” and “the extraordinary talent which her conversation…displayed.” It did not hurt that Doddy fell immediately in love with Mary, deluging her with letters describing the anguish she felt on the days they did not meet.

  Still, with Doddy, at least, Mary was interested only in pursuing a friendship. Her feelings for Jane at this point are less clear. Certainly, Mary regarded Hogg as a competitor, but whether this was the jealousy of a lover or a dear friend is uncertain. What is certain is that she instantly began a counterattack, lecturing her weaker friend that Hogg was not a worthy successor to Williams. She assured Jane that she would meet a more deserving man in the future, and in the meantime urged her to rely instead on their friendship. Promising Jane that s
he would take care of her, Mary reminded her that one day Percy would inherit the Shelley fortune and then they could all breathe a sigh of relief. Jane relented, sending Hogg away. Perhaps if he went to Rome and soaked in some art, he might achieve a more poetic outlook, Mary suggested politely. Jane relayed this message, and Hogg, seeking to please Jane, set forth on an extended European tour.

  Jane had never liked being on her own, and with Hogg gone, she turned the full force of her charm on Mary, telling Mary that she loved her and needed her more than anyone else. These were the words that Mary had longed to hear ever since Shelley had died—not from suitors, as they could never live up to her image of her husband, but Jane was another story. Shelley had cared about Jane—Mary did not yet know how much—and Jane had been part of the company of “the Elect.” With Jane, Mary could retain her connection to the past, since Jane remembered her as she had once been—the wife of a baronet, living a life dedicated to art and literature.

  Delighted by Jane’s professions of loyalty, Mary renewed her vows of undying allegiance. She poured out all of the love that otherwise would have been spent on Shelley, and from here the relationship deepened quickly. By that summer, Mary’s letters to Jane certainly appear to be love letters, suggestive, flirty, and full of praise. “I am not sure that male eyes will not trace these lines, so I will endeavor to be as demure as an old maid,” she teased. Jane was her “bright lily,” her “Fairy girl.” She mentions their sexual parts—“our pretty N—the word is too wrong I must not write it”—worried about Jane’s health, and told Hunt “the hope & consolation of my life is the society of [Jane]. To her, for better or worse, I am wedded.”

  By the winter, their relationship was so close that Mary turned to Jane for solace when The Last Man was published in January 1826 and received scathing reviews. One critic was shocked by its “sickening repetition of horrors”; another muttered that Mary’s imagination was “diseased” and that her writing was “perverted” and “morbid.” In an era that celebrated conquest and the growth of empire, when bestselling novels such as James Fenimore Cooper’s The Last of the Mohicans glorified the dream of Manifest Destiny, The Last Man stands out as a single voice of protest against war and conquest. There is no such thing as progress, Mary says. A man setting sail is not a glorious symbol of expansion. Rather, exploration is yet another meaningless action, a futile gesture in a world where all empires decay and die.

  As with Frankenstein, Mary’s largely male audience wondered what kind of woman would dream up such a nightmare vision. Books by female novelists were supposed to celebrate beauty; their tone should be gentle, their themes soft and tender. But Mary did not want to write books she considered “weak.” Like her mother, she aspired to the “masculine” virtues of strength and vigor, boldness and prophecy. Although she was encouraged by the few positive responses—the artist John Martin painted a series of works inspired by the novel, “An Ideal Design of the Last Man,” and the book was translated into French—her only real comfort during this bleak time remained her relationship with Jane. “She is in truth my all, my sole delight,” she wrote to Leigh Hunt.

  Unfortunately, though, Jane’s nature had not changed. For one thing, Jane, like Claire, had never stopped being jealous of Mary. She still said cutting things behind her back, repeating her old story that Mary had been cruel to Shelley and that she was the one Shelley had really loved, not Mary. In addition, Jane had never stopped missing the protection of a man, even a man as graceless as Hogg.

  That spring, Hogg returned from his European adventures, able to pontificate about the joys of Mediterranean culture but otherwise unchanged. His insistence that he loved her was too much for Jane to resist, and by December 1826 she had secretly renewed their relationship. The truth finally came out when she discovered that she was pregnant. In February, she confessed her news to Mary, adding that she and Hogg planned to live together with their new baby. Outraged and deeply disappointed though she was, Mary tried to support Jane’s decision, but in her journal worried that Jane would not be happy—and then, always honest with herself, worried that she did not want Jane to be happy.

  With a healthy sense of self-preservation, Mary gave up her home in Kentish Town that May and vacationed away from the pregnant Jane, choosing a new friend for her escort, a young woman named Isabel Robinson, whom she had met at a party given by a friend of the Hunts that spring. Nineteen-year-old Isabel had dark eyes, a brooding disposition, and short, curling black hair. She delighted everyone she encountered, men and women alike. Doddy, having realized that Mary would never return her feelings, was secretly and hopelessly in love with her. Seductive and flirtatious, Isabel had already sustained one love affair with an American journalist and had fled to France to give birth to their baby. When Mary met her, she was thin, melancholy, and desperate for a confidante. Mary, the tragic widow of Shelley, seemed like the perfect candidate, and so Isabel drew Mary into a corner and poured out her sorrows: Adeline, her baby, was living with a wet nurse nearby. If Isabel’s father discovered that she had a child, he would cast her out; she did not want to be exiled, but she was pining for her daughter. In tears, she declared she was going to run away with her baby and brave the future alone.

  This sad story moved Mary to take action. She was an expert on the miseries of having illegitimate children. Doddy, too, was eager to proffer assistance, as Isabel’s curls and slender figure were difficult to resist. At length, after many discussions, Mary and Doddy concocted a plan. Doddy knew that many people thought she looked masculine. She felt masculine. Why not capitalize on people’s misapprehensions, live the life she had always wanted, and save the gorgeous Isabel at the same time? She would disguise herself as a man and set off for France with Isabel, where they would pretend to be man and wife. After a few years, Doddy would fade away and Isabel could come back home to England, a respectable widow with a child. It was an absurd plan, crazy even. But Mary was her mother’s daughter. She knew that Mrs. Mason had successfully disguised herself as a man at medical school; she believed in Isabel’s cause; and so she assumed the role of mastermind. There were many dangers—if anyone caught on, all three women would be in permanent disgrace—but at the end of the summer, with Mary’s assistance, the strange couple moved to France, and a few years later, Isabel returned to England with her daughter. No one was ever the wiser.

  Before they left for Paris, however, Isabel took Mary aside. Over the course of her friendship with Mary, she had met Jane, who, true to form, had whispered terrible things about her to the young woman. Thinking her savior should know that Jane was not to be trusted, Isabel told Mary everything Jane had said, including the rumor that Shelley had never loved his wife. And now there was a new twist. According to Isabel, Jane implied that Shelley had been so unhappy in his marriage that he had hoped he would die when he sailed for home that fatal day. Mary was devastated. “My friend has proved false & treacherous,” she scrawled in her journal. “Have I not been a fool.”

  Mary did not confront Jane immediately, as in November, Jane’s baby died a few days after being born. Putting her feelings aside, Mary rushed to her old friend, full of empathy for her loss, and waited until February to confront her about her duplicity. Jane denied that she had done anything wrong, but Isabel’s words seemed irrefutable. They helped explain Hunt’s coldness back in Italy, and they also brought home a truth that Mary could no longer deny: Jane had been her competitor in Italy and remained her competitor, even though Mary had chosen not to see it.

  Mary did not sever her ties with Jane. Cruel though Jane had been, she meant too much for Mary to give her up entirely. Instead, Mary maintained a careful distance that would remain for the rest of their lives. Jane begged for forgiveness, but their friendship was now entirely on Mary’s terms. When, periodically, Jane tried to explain away her treachery, Mary put a stop to it, telling her that the harm could not be undone.

  In the summer of 1828, Trelawny arrived back in England. It had been six years since th
ose terrible months after Shelley’s drowning when he and Mary had clashed over her criticism of his mistress. She had not seen him since, but over the years they had exchanged letters. Trelawny had gone with Byron to fight for Greek independence, thus earning Mary’s respect, and when Jane betrayed her, Mary had written him long, confiding letters, expressing her passionate friendship and her longing to see him. Overcome by memories of his kindness toward her, memories that eclipsed their arguments, Mary wrote to Jane “how ardently I desire to see him.” She did not reveal her secret hope; but she had not forgotten the thrill she had felt dancing in his arms all those years ago at the ball in Pisa.

  Trelawny, however, did not appear to remember any particular tie between them, displaying none of the fervor of a suitor, or, for that matter, any of the warmth of a good friend. Mary had moved to London the previous fall, enrolling Percy in a grammar school, but instead of rushing to her front door to see her when he arrived in the city, Trelawny put her off time and again. When at last he did pay a visit, he immediately launched into an angry critique of how Mary was handling Shelley’s literary legacy. She should continue to publish Shelley’s poems, he said, and not obey his father. Shelley would have wanted her to rebel.

  Having just left behind his own daughter (whom he would never bother to see again), Trelawny had no understanding of how Mary was haunted by Sir Timothy’s threat that she would be separated from Percy if she broke his rules or could not stay out of debt. Such concerns seemed trivial to Trelawny, dedicated as he was to living life as a Byronic hero. Where was Mary’s lust for battle? Why did she keep compromising instead of fighting? For Trelawny, Shelley’s name was working wonders; his friendship with the dead poet enhanced his reputation as a dashing Romantic, a swashbuckler, and was almost as useful as his connection to Byron when it came to attracting the attention of London society. People came to parties expressly to hear his tales, even though they still refused to talk to Shelley’s widow.