Literature and Lapdogs is back with a new episode about Mary Shelley's novella (or novel, you decide), Mathilda. The text was written between August 1819 and February 1820, while Shelley was recovering from the loss of two of her young children. Apparently, it provided a much-needed distraction. However, it wasn't published until 1959, because Shelley sent the manuscript to her father, William Godwin, and he not only refused to publish it, but refused to return it. He said of the text that "if [it were] ever published, [it would need] a preface to prevent [readers] from being tormented by...the fall of the heroine" (Clemit 68).

In the podcast episode, my daughter and I summarize the text and share some thoughts and reactions to the reading experience. This work is definitely a departure from Frankenstein (1818), but there is much here that is interesting. The story is often seen as autobiographical (we talk about why) and it can also be read from a psychoanalytical perspective.

Suggested Further Readings

Clemit, Pamela. "From the Fields of Fancy to Mathilda." Mary Shelley in Her Times. Ed. Stuart Curran and Berry T. Bennett. Johns Hopkins University Press, 2000. 64-75.

Moore, Melina. "Mary Shelley's Matilda and the Struggle for Female Narrative Subjectivity." Rocky Mountain Review, 2011. 208-215.

Shelley, Mary. Mathilda. The Mary Shelley Reader. Ed. Berry T. Benny and Charles E. Robinson. Oxford University Press, 1990. 174-246.