Death and the Maidens

Download or read book Death and the Maidens written by Janet Todd and published by A&C Black. This book was released on 2013-09-19 with total page 358 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 1816 was the fateful year when the Romantic poet Shelley and his lover Mary shared a hectic creative and sexual menage in Switzerland with Lord Byron. This intense period drew from the men some of the greatest poetry of the age; from Mary, it elicited the seminal figures of Frankenstein and his Creature. But for other women close to Shelley it was a time of tragedy. At the heart of the story are Fanny Wollstonecraft and Harriet Westbrook, women whose lives were literally overwhelmed by him – and who both committed suicide before the year was out. "Not only a splendid work of feminist history, this is an important addition to late 18th- and early 19-century literary criticism." - Publishers Weekly (starred review)