To Compile, Edit, and Annotate the Letters of Mary Shelley

FAIN: FB-12266-74

Betty T. Bennett
American University (Washington, DC 20016-8200)

To compile, edit and annotate the letters of Mary Wollstonecraft Goodwin Shelley (1797-1851), novelist, essayist, and editor. Her correspondence contains exchanges with many of the major and minor figures of the 19th century, including Godwin, Percy Bysshe Shelley, Byron, Hunt, Bulwer-Lytton, Lady Morgan and Thomas Moore. Various libraries in Great Britain and the U.S. will be utilized for this study. Although Mary Shelley was not a major literary figure she did leave her mark on literary history. Her unpublished letters deserve this depth of study since they provide substantial information about the major personages with whom she interacted, and thereby offer new perspectives on the cultural and intellectual climate of the period.