How like a star you rose upon my life, Shedding fair radiance o’er my darkened hour! At your uprise swift fled the turbid strife Of grief and fear,—so mighty was your power!…
Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, born Mary Godwin on August 30, 1797, in London, England, was a Romantic-era writer best known for her novel Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus (Lackington, Hughes, Harding, Mavor & Jones, 1818), often credited as the first true science- fiction novel. In addition to producing her own literary works, Shelley was instrumental in publishing the works of her late husband, Percy Bysshe Shelley. She died on February 1, 1851, in London.